Shock

[Mickey1122]

We just had a shock. We were cleaning out the pantry, making sure we had things, throwing things out and preparing for Christmas. I pulled a b of cake off of the shelf, and noticed a small white bug crawling accross the top of the box. I was shoced. It turned out to be an Indian Meal Moth. (We figured this out by looking on the Internet for pantry pests, and it came up under an Image Search. They go for packages foods, and look like little white worms. They are apparently common and lots of people get them at one point. They usually stow away in grocery bags.) Needless to say, our first priority was to get rid of them. I noticed another one in the corner of th epantry, and called for help. We threw more than half the contents of the pantry out, including everything that was in some way open of exposed! As we reached the end of the pantry, with no sign of the critters, I noticed that there was a tiny bend in the flap of the Old El Paso taco mix. With gloves, I tore off the flap to discover a nest.
Although I realize that it probably came from the grocery store bag, and not the tacos, we will probably never purchase that brand again.
I encourage everyone to look in their pantry for these pests. It can happen to the tidiest of people; it isn't the homeowners fault. We were simply shocked.
Has anything shocked you in such a way? What did you do?

 

[Narnian_Princess]

Oh, yeah, I hear you. Down here we have little brown beetles that get into EVERYTHING. They eat through cardboard and plastic to get at things like cake mix or cornmeal. They even completely infested the canister of Italian seasoning! Imagine being ready to season something and discovering a mass of beetles in with the basil! At one point we had to throw almost everything from the pantry and all the cabinets away. We use bay leaves now to keep the bugs, well, at bay! But just last week I discovered that they were in the flavored tea bags, yuck!

 

[Mickey1122]

That stinks. The worst part is tha when you find the bugs, you wonder whether the things that you have just used were infested also.

 

[DisneyAddict_M]

Oh, yeah, I hear you. Down here we have little brown beetles that get into EVERYTHING. They eat through cardboard and plastic to get at things like cake mix or cornmeal. They even completely infested the canister of Italian seasoning! Imagine being ready to season something and discovering a mass of beetles in with the basil! At one point we had to throw almost everything from the pantry and all the cabinets away. We use bay leaves now to keep the bugs, well, at bay! But just last week I discovered that they were in the flavored tea bags, yuck!

I get something similar in my apartment too. When my sister lived in an apartment building, she also had them. I have to put EVERYTHING in sealed tight canisters or ziplock bags (the kind with the zipper across the top). Ever since I started doing that, they haven't gotten into anything. They especially like pasta and flour. Ew.

 

[daisyduck123]

The OP's post creeped me out.

A few years ago, we had ants in our kitchen. Now I keep absolutely everything in my pantry in Rubbermaid containers...it's worked perfectly for me. I've never had any bugs of any kind since.

DH & the kids hate the containers, because they can never remember where anything is....but it's better than having bugs.

 

[Am_I_There_Yet]

Oh, yeah, I hear you. Down here we have little brown beetles that get into EVERYTHING. They eat through cardboard and plastic to get at things like cake mix or cornmeal. They even completely infested the canister of Italian seasoning! Imagine being ready to season something and discovering a mass of beetles in with the basil! At one point we had to throw almost everything from the pantry and all the cabinets away. We use bay leaves now to keep the bugs, well, at bay! But just last week I discovered that they were in the flavored tea bags, yuck!

Weevils. We call them evils!

I freeze my flour as soon as I bring it home. Flour seems to be the most common item they live in.

They're disgusting!

 

[Narnian_Princess]

Weevils. We call them evils!

I freeze my flour as soon as I bring it home. Flour seems to be the most common item they live in.

They're disgusting!

Hmm, I don't know. I know what weevils look like (Lord knows; I ate them in oatmeal once! ) but these are not weevils. They are shaped like ladybugs, but about 1/16 the size and all brown. Oh well, it doesn't matter what they are, they're gross just the same!

 

[M 'n C]

ahh we get weevils too. Our pantry is full of items in ziplock bags as well. At first I was embarrassed that my family did that growing up but I am over it now. We always get weevils from Jiffy Brand Corn Mix. So now we buy the stuff the day we plan on making it so that it doesn't sit in the cubbord infesting everything else.

 

[Am_I_There_Yet]

Hmm, I don't know. I know what weevils look like (Lord knows; I ate them in oatmeal once! )

Ewwwwww.....

 

[Mickey1122]

Weevils. We call them evils!

I freeze my flour as soon as I bring it home. Flour seems to be the most common item they live in.

They're disgusting!

I read that freezing seems to get rid of them. However, I still can' imagine eating something that at one point had bugs crawling around in it.

 

[PrincessKitty1]

We never had any kind of bugs until after a series of three hurricanes hit this area two years ago. Suddenly we were infested with pantry moths! It was horrible. They got in EVERYTHING, including pet food, plastic wrap, packages of any sort (aluminum foil, boxes of tea bags, etc.).

We threw EVERYTHING in our kitchen away that wasn't in the refrigerator. DH did some research on the internet and bought some moth traps and a moth vacuum (a little hand-held vacuum with a flexible cup-shaped end for trapping the moths). It was an all-out WAR! We vacuumed every moth we saw and flushed them down the toilet.

It took us months to get rid of the moths (they have a life cycle of several months) but we are now moth-free (we did see ONE moth about 6 months ago but we think it may have been a carcass!). However, we still keep ALL open food (chips, cereal boxes, flour, etc.) in the refrigerator along with the aluminum and plastic wrap. The dry dog food is in an air-tight container we purchased at Pet Smart.

 

[JR6ooo4]

what is worse than finding a worm in your apple....?

...finding half a worm!

Mikeeee

 

[disykat]

When I was a young adult and living with roommates we had it happen. We had to toss just about everything not in jars out of the cupboards. One of our roommates was gone for the weekend when it happened. She was none too pleased when she came home and discovered how much of her stuff we'd tossed! I think she tried to believe it, but not having seen it herself I don't think she really did. The fact that we had also tossed out all our stuff helped.

 

[jann1033]

kind of funny now but once i bought some buckwheat pancake mix and when i opened the box these little brown bugs just started pouring out of the box, like a giant tidal wave of bugs...it about freaked me out..i put it in a zip lock bag, and left it outside then took it back to the store and wrote the company who sent me some coupons for free mix...i think it had just been sitting there way to long, as evidently i am the only one who likes buckwheat pancakes....
a worse story was yrs ago i went to an old Kroger the day before we left for vacation...i bought some snacks to take and they had bread on sale so i bought some and put it in the freezer,,,got back 2 weeks later and frozen to the wrapper was a cockroach...i totally went nuts but glad i had frozen it so i could just throw it and not get them in the house. never shopped at that store again although i have heard most stores have roaches...
and this past summer we had terrible big black ants...didn't know where they were at first so i'd open the cupboard and see them, clean everything out and throw stuff away, tried spraying bug spray everything and could not get rid of them...finally i realized they were living in a bag of brown sugar( totally disgusting) but once i threw it away, cleaned out the cupboard again( like the 5 th time) and sprayed i didn't see them again...it was really disgusting

this sounds like i have bugs all the time but this is in 30 yrs of marriage so not a total slob

 

[ARLO1]

i found roaches on my kitchen and bathroom counter. had the exterminator come in twice. when he came in the 1st time he asked if we had chinese food delivered - which we did and said they probably came from there. well it took more than a year to reorder from that chinese restaurant again. and even that we take the food out of the bag immediately and then put the bag right out on the back stoop to go into the outside garbage can.

i feel either it was the chinese food or the oil burner guy otherwise how did they get into the bathroom also.

yech and double yech...

 

[icebrat001]

Icky Icky poo, I feel sick. Why did I open this thread. I set myself up for failure.

 

[Mickey1122]

i found roaches on my kitchen and bathroom counter. had the exterminator come in twice. when he came in the 1st time he asked if we had chinese food delivered - which we did and said they probably came from there. well it took more than a year to reorder from that chinese restaurant again. and even that we take the food out of the bag immediately and then put the bag right out on the back stoop to go into the outside garbage can.

i feel either it was the chinese food or the oil burner guy otherwise how did they get into the bathroom also.

yech and double yech...

:yuck:

 

[Am_I_There_Yet]

I read that freezing seems to get rid of them. However, I still can' imagine eating something that at one point had bugs crawling around in it.

I try not to think about it that way!

I freeze it to keep them from getting into the flour.