Moths In The Pantry

You know how you do things a certain way for years

then,

over time…

you kind of gradually quit doing it?

I don’t know why I quit doing it.

Did I just get lazy?

Did I forget??

Did I run out of the thing that I needed??

Or did I get cocky

and start thinking I’m Queen of the Universe

and they’d never mess with me?

For as long as I can remember,

I’ve been keeping things in my pantry

PEST-FREE.

Until last night.

When I noticed…

about a dozen moths

on the wall above the metro cart that we’re using as our temporary pantry.

This is where we’re keeping all the pasta, rice, flour, oats, cake mixes…

And moths are never a good sign…

So I took everything out

and started looking

and, sure enough…

there they were!

PANTRY MOTHS.

In the oats, in the rice, in the pasta…

They were even inside sealed pasta boxes and plastic containers of rice and oats.

And it’s a lot of work to get rid of moths in the pantry.

Here’s what you need to do:

REMOVE

Take everything out of the pantry, preferably to an outside table where they won’t infest other areas of your home.

INSPECT

Look for moths, tiny worms, or webs in every box, bag and container.

In most cases, it’s likely that your initial infestation occurred at the food processing or packaging facility before you even brought the package home.

But once they’re in your home, they can spread to other foods.

These guys can chew through cardboard pasta boxes and plastic bags (even Ziploc bags) so they can get into unopened packages. They can also get into plastic and glass containers that are not airtight.

DISCARD

Throw away any food that you find that’s affected.

Toss it all in the outside trash — you don’t want to toss worms in your inside trash and hatch a whole new batch of moths into your house to re-infest everything.

CLEAN

Give your pantry or cupboard a thorough cleaning. Vacuum ceilings, walls, corners, shelves (tops. bottoms and brackets), floors, baseboards and the door. Discard your vacuum bag in the outside trash. If you use a bagless vacuum, clean the dust compartment so you don’t harbor moth larvae in your vacuum.

Wipe the whole space down with white vinegar or soap and water.

Wipe everything down (cans, bottles, jars) with white vinegar before putting it back in the pantry.

PREVENT

Remember ‘An Ounce of Prevention is Worth a Pound of Cure’??

Well, the good news is — you can prevent moths in the pantry!

Since it’s likely that you brought the bugs home already in the package from the store, a great thing you can do to prevent infestation is to store things like bags of flour, nuts, pasta and oats in the freezer. The freezing temps will kill pantry moths and their larvae.

If you need to store these things in the pantry, be sure to store them in airtight glass or hard plastic containers.

And that thing that I kind of quit doing??

Two words —

BAY LEAVES

It’s said that bay leaves repel pantry insects. Everything from beetles to weevils, moths to ants and flies hate the smell of bay leaves.

Toss a few bay leaves into the airtight container of flour,