oh hell.

[rmd]

so, i hadn't been doing a lot of baking recently, but i settled down to start a loaf of bread this morning for my guests this evening, only to discover grain moth carcasses in both my bread flour and semolina containers. the main all-purpose flour seemed to be uninfested, but i tossed it anyways.

sigh.

i haven't seen any live ones out and about, but for all i know the cats are feasting on them.

and now, the cleaning jihad.

Comments

[keren-s.livejournal.com]

We went through that and I agree on the hermetically sealed containers. But more than that, they may have spread anywhere by now. The first time we just tossed the stuff we knew was contaminated and put new stuff in sealed containers. The second time we cleared out ALL our stuff, washed our pantry shelves with a water/bleach solution (to kill any eggs), then put down bay leaves (allegedly they do not like the smell of them) and plastic sheeting over the shelves. We also put single serving things that are not in sealed containers (like a box of Annies' pasta & cheese) in plastic zip locked baggies with bay leaves inside (if we are not going to eat them right away) as we found those boxes infested too after the first time. Anyway, that all seems to work. And the cats seem to find plenty of other insect to feast on (spiders, flies, ants, etc.) so do not miss the moths.

[rmd.livejournal.com]

yeah, i'm planning on going straight to the massive "nuke the site from orbit" cleaning rather than a more restrained approach of "well, they were only in two containers."

[gayathri.livejournal.com]

I also found that at OSH, one can buy a phermone laced sticky tagged stuff specific fot these moths -- keep 'em around the kitchen, and the live moths are attracted. I kept all new stuff in the freezer, actually.

So Tupperware doesnt count as hermetically sealed? how can you tell?

[emmacrew.livejournal.com]

We have an ongoing grain moth war. I have lots of stuff in metal and glass now.

They also eat dried fruit and, sometimes, chocolate. And I second the usefulness of the sticky traps. If nothing else, they will let you know if there are any live ones out and about.

The larvae look like little half-inch long worms, yellowish or pinkish depending on what they've eaten. And they make little tiny webby cocoons in corners and crevices that can be fairly hard to spot.