Dealing with pantry moths

[kaylah_rose]

Hi people of workshop!

I have a query. Apologies if it is on here already, but I could not find it. 

We have been getting quite a lot of small moths roaming around our house and making themselves comfortable. They are very similar looking to the below image.

We have tried using moth balls to remove them, but they don't seem to do anything and just smell awful. 

Does anyone have any ideas why these would be propping up or how to remove them? We haven't found anything eaten so we not sure why they are hanging around. 

Thanks!

Kay

[Jason]

@kaylah_rose,

Sorry to see you haven't had a response on this problem as yet. Perhaps you could provide us with a little more detail, which might help members. 

I take it you don't have any obvious ways that the moths are getting into the house? And they don't seem to be attracted to anything in particularly inside the house?

Jason

[kaylah_rose]

Hi @Jason

I really have no idea how they are getting in. I feel like there might be a nest somewhere? I actually have been finding them in the pantry so am currently undergoing a major clean through the pantry and the entire kitchen to try and find the source. 

I did do a bit of googling to see what came up and I found this. https://www.todayshomeowner.com/how-to-get-rid-of-pantry-moths-and-larvae-in-your-kitchen/

Freaked me out a bit, but our pantry has brick walls and I think maybe some eggs were in the grout or something like that? If I could move house I would, but I'll try the cleaning first. The moths haven't been around lately so I think it might be working. 

Has anyone else ever heard of these?!

Kay

[Jason]

Ah yes @kaylah_rose, if they are pantry moths then they would have probably come in via purchased food. 

We've had them before and they prompted us to move to airtight containers and jars for everything. 

Good luck with the operation. 

Jason

[ProjectPete]

My first thought was pantry moths and they can be a nightmare to get rid of But, based on the ones I've seen/had in Perth they don't look the same.

If they are pantry moths, then like @Jason said, they come in food. Rice, flour, nuts, grains, etc are common. You can get pantry moth traps to attract and kill the living/flying ones but there'll be eggs in you food stuffs still. You need to clear that stuff out "with a fine tooth comb". Depending on what the food is, you can freeze a container (of rice for example) then wash the rice and sift the dead moths/eggs out. Failing that, dump anything they've infested and start over.

[kaylah_rose]

Thanks @ProjectPete

3 days later and we think we have it complete.

The infestation didn't appear to be too bad, but we threw out nearly everything (being on the cautious side to avoid having to do this again). Coated the entire pantry in bug spray and left overnight. We then used disinfectant and scrubbed every single inch. Our pantries have brick walls so we scrubbed them down twice to remove any left over eggs that might be hiding in the mortar.
I did take your advice and bought pantry moth traps to try and stop them from coming back. 

So much wasted food though!! Devastating. 

Thanks for your help and advice! At least now I can organise my pantry I guess..

[WallsendWoman]

 I I do talk to text and that only holds a few words at a time and I'll keep losing my dialogue in pasting, . So this is the short one and we'll see how we go.. Paragraphs will jump around to wrong spots and sometimes dispose of the entire work

Wash out every cupboards with a bay leaf tea, concentrating on any joints or hiding places and maybe using a brush.

Dispose of any noticeably infected foods and you will recognise this by webbing in the food. Not necessarily seeing creatures.

I very strongly believe mine came in with ground almonds... I saw no other food damage otherwise but I saw a lot of damage around the house with the cocoons ready to pass out to give me billions and billions more on top of the billions I already had

put food in tins and sealed containers and put them in the freezer. Dispose of the infected and keep the good, checking all the lips under the lids, under the base etc. Dry and insert dry bay leaves in productsHe won't ruin the flavour but it deters moth. 

I. finally had success from the probably the world's worst episode of pantry moths..... especially the cornice between the wall and the ceiling in every room of the house and they did not want to be wipe down without physical labour to rub them firmly. Cocoons cling. 

Bay leaves are the only thing that deter them but I had to wash them away with a tea  bay leaves in every possible place even needing reasonable scrubbing power. I needed this for the wash down of the joint between the ceiling cornice and the wall that they chose in every room of the house to clean to every centimetre apart, concentrating on this spot but also surrounding areas with a bay leaf tea and a disposable cloth even gently abrasive not to damage your paint though.

I had youse dozens of the pantry moth traps you can buy for around about $12. They were filled in 5 minutes..

I found similar sticky paper suitable for rat traps and put the pheromone strip from those, traps, so there would be greatest surface to stick to.  I had already spent a few hundred dollars and so I got to recycling the pheromone strip onto other sticky surfaces,  but they escaped the contact adhesive plastic as much as they stuck. When I ran out of the strong sticky paper intended to catch rats on.

It was persistence and that physical labour to destroy any cocoons that were visible up high that conquered it. I put bay leaves in everything I could imagine and to this day I still top up those areas with bay leaves. I put bay leaves in my food canisters. I surface spray underneath the cornice and I surface spray inside my drawers

if I see something fluttering by I spray it straight away. no forgiveness, and no invitation to stay..

Although my freezer is very small where I possibly can, I try and put my freshly purchased dry products in a container and freeze them so that introduced moth, pupae or larvae ,  will not survive. when purchasing a product I looked at the shelves and the packages and sometimes to the shelves up and see if something flies out..

It truly was a nightmare with them everywhere

[Jason]

Many thanks for sharing your experiences @WallsendWoman. Great to have you join the Workshop community. We're looking forward to reading more of your posts soon. Please feel free to join in the discussion anytime you need a hand or have something to share. And please let me know if you ever have any feedback about how we can improve Workshop for you and make it easier to use. 

Welcome,

Jason

[wooshka]

We had this problem years ago and simply freeze everything for a few days that could have the eggs in them,(same as another post) since then we have had no infestations.

 The eggs are in everything you buy pretty much , freezing kills them

[Jason]

Many thanks for joining in the discussion and sharing your knowledge and experience with the community @wooshka. It's been great to see you make your first few posts on Workshop since joining us a while back. Let me extend a belated welcome and encourage you to let me know if you ever need a hand getting the most from the site. 

Thanks again,

Jason