Pantry Moths

Back in November we had an infestation of pantry moths. At first we had no idea where these little moths, that turned to dust when you mashed them, came from. But they were always in our house and it became a game to my girls..."look there is a bug...I want to swatter it!" Yes, my children made a game out of hunting the moths and they each took ownership of a a particular fly swatter, one had the blue one and the other had the yellow one. Every evening my husband looked like some wild man hunting these tiny annoyances, especially when he decided to chase one around because it kept landing on his computer screen. It was common to hear "LOOK A BUG!" from the mouths of our babes. Our dogs even got in on the moth killing by snapping at the ones that would fly too close to them. You would think we could have figured out where the moths were coming from, but it took us about a month. I guess we just thought they swarmed in from the outside every time we opened and closed the door. We had no idea we were bringing them in with the groceries.

After we got back from vacation, we realized that these moths were everywhere in the kitchen. Then I noticed these disgusting larva in the pasta and cream of wheat (after I poured them into pots of boiling water). Mind you, I was about 10 weeks pregnant at the time and my stomach did not take too well to seeing larva pop to the top of the pots. I feel sick reflecting upon it.

My husband and I were so relieved to hear that several people that we know had experienced pantry moths and the moths are in fact very common in Texas. Whew! We thought that we had some exotic bug problem. OK, they are common but how do we get rid of them. Well, we started by throwing everything out of our pantry including olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and peanut butter. We did not want to take any chances of the pantry moth larva being in anything. We even threw away the girls' Easy Bake Oven. Old Mother Hubbard's cubbards could not have been barer.

How did we get rid of them, you ask? After we threw ever item in our pantry away (literally), we vacuumed the pantry from top to bottom and corner to corner, then scrubbed with a mild detergent, and then wiped down all the surfaces with white vinegar. We then closed the door and did not open it for three days. At that time we looked for larva and moths...we found a few so we closed the pantry back up and waited a few more days....there were a few more moths. Finally, about 3 weeks later we had no more moths at all...we were not taking any chances but they were probably gone in 2 weeks.

Now we do not store our dry goods in the original containers. We bought a variety of canning jars that we store our pasta, flour, sugar, and cereal in and they look really cool. We got them a The Container Store:
Hermetic Storage Jars
French Hermetic Storage Jars

The varying sizes are great and they have a good look to them. Of course the are glass, because we could not find a "good" plastic container that we liked.

So far no more moths. I have also been told, by an experienced pantry moth investee, that you should store you dry goods in the freezer for a few days before putting them in our pantry in order to kill any larva that may be in there. UGH! Can you even imagine the amount of bug larva we have eaten in our lives...I do not even want to think about it.

Now don't every one go clean out your pantries at once...