They're Back!

About a week ago, I found a small dark moth in the cupboard where we keep the coffee cups.  Being no moth expert, I couldn't tell for certain that it WAS a pantry moth (possibly because I smushed him too quickly), and if he was he was one of the dumber sort as he had moved into a cupboard containing glass and stoneware, so I washed up the moth guts and went on with my life.

Shortly thereafter, there was a small moth in the pantry.  Not in any food--just in the pantry.  Far more worrying, but I squashed him and checked all the containers yet again to make sure they were properly sealed.  This time a bit more unnerved but unable to find any further traces, I went on with life, but a bit more alert.

Yesterday, however, we unmistakably found two of the little demons.  No longer messing around, Andy squashed them both, we again checked everything in the pantry, replaced the old moth traps, and are now slightly loopy from the industrial moth killer Andy sprayed on the walls.

We are hoping that these guys are maybe ones that were in cocoon stage when we sprayed before, and maybe stayed in that stage all winter and are just now hatching, because otherwise we are at a complete loss.  EVERYTHING that goes into the pantry spends 5 days in the freezer first, and everything is in air-tight containers, and nothing shows any signs of worm babies.  Still, we are on high alert and are considering installing one of those pressurized airlock things outside the front door to screen anyone new entering our house.

We Found Webbing In The Oat Bran Today!!!!

TWO MONTHS after we tentatively declared victory over the little pantry moth beasts, we found webbing in the jar of oat bran today.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Technically, it could be from beasts that somehow survived from the earlier infestation, but we are back on high creepy little bastards alert.


I checked everything near the problem jar, and nothing looks contaminated and no evil worm beasts are crawling on any of the walls, so we're hoping it was just an anomaly.  And we didn't want oat bran that badly anyway.

I Think We MIGHT Finally Have Found Them All

I found a couple places still containing moth beast cocoon things, so I'm reassured that the steps I've been taking with everything that has been allowed back IN the pantry are working.  The latest offenders were a cardboard box that somehow managed to miss Andy's vacuum/bleach/bleach again/move-out-into-the-storage-shed-so-the-beasts-can-be-killed-by-the-frost attack.  We have all these serving trays/bowls/chaffing dishes/etc. that we keep in their original boxes until we need to use them--which also seem to make good pantry moth nurseries.  We're going to double-check the ones out in the storage shed later this week just to make sure we really got the beasts, but the boxes will also remain out there for the entire winter.  It was a bit frustrating to find something we missed, but not nearly so frightening as it would have been to have found a moth and NOT to have found something we missed.  Basically, I have had to recheck EVERYTHING before it goes back into the pantry, and especially the things we cleaned early on in this little moth war.  At the beginning, we had NO idea what we were truly up against, so we just didn't understand that what we were doing to combat them wasn't even going to slow the monsters down.  But, I think we MIGHT finally be on top of it, and the house is finally getting back to normal, and we think by the end of the day we'll actually be able to use the dining room table again!


Such little things make me happy lately..............

Sigh

There was a moth in the pantry this morning.

Do you think they can exist on plastic now????????

Big Girls Don't Cry.....

But sometimes they could really use a drink.

We have washed, bleached, caulked, and sprayed the pantry (repeatedly), and with no sign of the pantry moth beasts even NEAR the pantry after the spray, I decided it was time to start moving things back in--checking everything thoroughly before letting it back in, and so far I'm to here:

Things were going well through the alcohol--I admit, that's where I started as it had never been infected in the first place and I sort of assume alcohol would probably kill the little beasts--and the things in cans, as there's really no way the beasts could ever get inside those.  They were safe, stackable, and almost completely incapable of infestation.  (It's good to work your way up on these things.)

Everything--and I mean EVERYTHING--is sealed up.  I've even gone so far as this:

because the little beasts like paper & since they were in the coffee filters, I see no reason to consider paper baking cups safe.  I realize I am going to come out of this saga with a pantry that would make me an obsessive-compulsive disorder poster child, but it's either this or move, and we're still trying to unpack from the last move, so........

Alcohol dealt with, it was time to start on everything else.

OH MY.

If you ever find grain moths in your pantry, save yourself the trouble and just throw out EVERYTHING that isn't airtight.  If you want to know if a container is airtight, fill the sink with water, close the lid of the container, and submerge it in the water.  If water gets inside, the moth beasts can get inside.  Trust me.

Want to know what to look for?

See that webbing?  If this were some sort of grain, it would just look clumpy.  These beasts, however, like dried bananas--the stuff I nicely did WITHOUT preservatives. Maybe THIS is why the dried bananas you buy are deep-fried.  They taste terrible, but I bet the pantry moths don't like them.

A bit of a blurred shot, but you can see the little worm-baby beast hanging out IN the webbing.  Sorry it's a bit blurry, but there was NO way I was going to take the lid off this sucker.  Into the trash, jar and all.  Ditto the peanut butter jars full of millet, cracked wheat, and quinoa, all of which contained little beasts.  They obviously are NOT airtight.

Another sign you might have pantry moths:

see those little grains of brown rice that are hanging from the jar lid?  THAT is not static.  I had thought myself quite thrifty & resourceful in reusing these glass jars from Adam's natural peanut butter, but while they might come from the STORE airtight, they're like a little pantry moth condominium.  So much for thrift.

The GOOD news is that the 4 boxes of Rubbermade containers really do seem to defeat the little bastards.  The bad news is, I underestimated the little monsters when originally cleaning out the pantry.  Just because you can't initially SEE the infestation doesn't mean they aren't there lurking.  Today I discovered several containers where I had locked the little monsters INTO the container.

That white stuff all over the lid isn't a trick of the light.  That's the webbing these little monsters spin.  Spiders have NOTHING on these guys.  A spiderweb cannot hold large clumps of grain up.  This stuff can.  And you can see a smallish worm-baby.  They get bigger.

THEN I got to double-check the kitchen table--where all these moth-infested jars have been sitting for the last month, but luckily I didn't find a single moth or worm baby.  I'd be showing you a flaming tablecloth right now if I had.

Soooo, that was MY day.  And if anyone wants to know why I am drinking a white chocolate martini at 4:30 in the afternoon, I think I have a very reasonable excuse.

New Excuses

So I'm getting a little bit tired of explaining to people who drop by why we have food scattered all over the house (not to mention it seems to really gross them out), so I think we need a new story.  Possible ideas:

1.  The canned green beans are afraid of the dark and the jars of salsa didn't want to be left behind

2.  This year for Thanksgiving we decided to decorate the entire house to look like a really big cornucopia.

3.  I saw decorating with jars on Martha Stewart and decided to take it one step further.

4.  It's for a play-at-home version of Iron Chef

5.  I just love grocery shopping so much that I wanted my home to look like Fred Meyer.

6.  Serious "munchies."

7.  We were expecting a LOT more trick-or-treaters.

8.  It makes it easier to use the pantry for games of hide-and-seek.

9.  We're taking inventory for tax purposes

10.  We've decided to jump right past the "lived-in" look and go straight to the "battle for survival" look.

Things I Am REALLY Hoping This Week

*  That the "death to pantry moths" spray arrives soon.  Like today.

*  That the "death to pantry moths" spray arrives before I have to explain to the piano tuner why we are currently keeping potatoes on the piano.

*  That our recent 70-degree weather doesn't encourage the darn lawn to start growing again.

*  That the "winter" stuff I diligently spread on our lawn works in spite of global warming

*  That people continue not to notice that the economy has improved from 2 years ago and that the stock market is gaining little by little.  We're making quite a bit of money on the stock market this year, because one thing I learned from working as a stock broker is to always bet against stupidity.  If Fox News won't go away, at least we can use it to our advantage.

*  That we'll finally get cool enough weather to get our garlic planted.  Like the temperatures we had in July.....

*  That the three hundred dollars worth of "air tight" containers really are air & worm-baby tight.

*  That I won't have to incorporate jars, bottles, and rubbermade containers into my Christmas decorating scheme.......

Finally Some Answers

Well, I vacuumed 4 adult moths today, but the good or bad news--depending on how we want to look at it--is that they weren't in the pantry.  They were on the kitchen ceiling.  So, they're not gone.

The actual good news is that I found this website:  http://www.indianmealmoths.com/meal-moth-control
It answers a lot of the questions I haven't been able to find information on, and at least gives me some hope.  A few things cleared up:

1.  The Catchmaster moth traps do work.  Unfortunately, as I had feared, it's the male moths they kill, not the females.  So, if we have a male moth who isn't seduced by the trap pheremones and finds one of the female moths and they get together for a little moth whoopee, we still have problems.  Not that we're going to stop using them, but I was really hoping it was the female moths and their worm-baby breeding ability we were bumping off.

2.  Nothing kills the pupal stage of these beasts.  Very sad news.  Especially since I vacuumed up so many of the beasts in their cocoons.  Here's hoping the Raid I've regularly sprayed into the vacuum gets them as soon as they emerge from this indestructible pupal stage.  I don't care if we've emptied the vacuum by then--I just want all of them dead.

3.  It takes time.  Not that we weren't realizing this, but "taking time" is better than "freakin' impossible."  So there is hope.

Shouldn't We Be Winning By Now?

This

is our kitchen pantry.  It has been emptied, soaped, bleached, caulked, and painted--with an occasional shot of Raid here & there.  The brown thing is a pantry moth trap (which does work, by the way).  And yet....I just vacuumed up two more moths a few minutes ago.  We're nervous about moving things back into the pantry until we're sure that the moths & their little worm babies are gone, but we were sort of hoping that would have been when their food supply dried up--or when their nests were vacuumed up or painted over.  Maybe they can survive a few days without food or air?

In the meantime, meals here at Chateau Sutton-Goar are a bit of a scavenger hunt.  The potatoes are in the living room, the flour is in the dining room, and the olives are over by the piano.  Isn't that where everyone keeps their olives?????

Things I Have Learned This Week

*  There are several varieties of pantry moths: Mediterranean Flour Moths, Indian Meal Moths, and Angoumois Gran Moths.  Knowing this doesn't help get rid of them in any way, but is the information that Google seems to think I want most.

*  Not all rubber gloves will stop jalapeno oil from getting onto your hands.  Interestingly, the oil has an amazing shelf life, so even if one is smart enough to wear two sets of gloves when dealing with the jalapenos, if one doesn't think about it and dons the rubber gloves to wear while cleaning the pantry shelves with bleach to get rid of moth eggs, one can get jalapeno burns from the inside of the gloves to add to the fun.


*  They sell pantry moth traps.  I ordered 24 of them last night.  If I was positive that they work, I'd have ordered 1000.


*  It is impossible to underestimate the number of places these stupid moths & their disgusting worm babies will show up.  Today I found them in the coffee filters.


*  Even if the set of cannisters was relatively expensive and sold to be used for food storage, it doesn't necessarily mean that they are airtight.  In fact, if they are blue & are sold at Target, I can promise you they aren't.  Why one would make cannisters that aren't airtight is anyone's guess.  $1 big plastic jars from the dollar store are airtight.  Go figure.


*  One Advil is not enough pain-killer to cope with an all-over hand burn.  I'm considering unconsciousness.


*  If we ever get rid of the pantry moths, I promise to never, ever, EVER complain about slugs in the garden again.  I may even name them and keep them as pets.

Year of the Bug

So......I was complaining about the OUTSIDE bugs.  They are nothing compared to having INDOOR bugs.

Our pantry has been invaded by grain moths.  Little black moths that can chew through plastic.  Or maybe it's their little wormy offspring that can do that.  ICK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Not that cleaning out the pantry once in a while isn't a good idea, but I would have preferred it to be because I had the "spring cleaning bug," not real bugs.

It turns out that bay leaves will repel the little beasts, but they are EVERYWHERE.  Even in empty cardboard boxes and the boxes containing our serving dishes.  I would have thought, being grain moths, that they would really go places that contained grains.  But we have been invested by some free-thinkers, and they have taken up residence anywhere they could.

I never thought I would say this, but maybe the slugs weren't so bad after all..............