The weekend was a good one. Hope yours was too. We did supper on Friday night with friends, volunteered at Kitty haven on Saturday, found my brother's 21st present, watched the first Grand Prix of the season yesterday with our neighbours over a delicious lunch and got lots of work done.
If it wasn't for the moths it would've been perfect. I hate the moths.
Let me explain... We have a pantry in our kitchen that attracts moths like Malema attracts news headlines. They are prolific. And they get into everything! I have found the little blighters and their revolting white worm offspring in my Tupperware containers, inside packets that have been sealed with packaging tape, inside boxes that have yet to be opened and even behind labels on tins and bottles.
They give me the creeps and there seems to be nothing I can do about them!
Every few months I clean out the whole damn pantry. This involves taking out everything - tins, boxes, containers, spices etc. I blitz the tiny room with almost a full can of bug-zapping insect killer. Then I wipe down each and every item, sitting on my kitchen floor, checking for moths and worms and chucking out anything where I can see evidence of these intruders. I hate doing this because it is a phenomenal waste of money (nevermind being a disgusting and time-consuming exercise).
Then I pack whatever's left of our supplies (usually a few lonely tins stripped of their moth-infested labels with my handwritten notes in permanent ink, some onions, sachets of cat food and the icing sugar, which for some reason they don't like) into plastic containers with lids. In theory, this means that if I've missed a moth or worm or eggs in the macaroni packet, the evil bugs will only be able to ruin the pasta and not everything else.
I then wipe down the shelves with a cloth dipped in bleach, replace the newspaper lining on each shelf and put down little containers filled with mothballs. The moths find this hilarious. They demonstrate their lack of respect for me and my kitchen stock by laying their eggs on top of the moth balls.
When we use anything to cook with, we check for moths. We sieve our hot chocolate, rinse our rice (bugs float) and store our flour and mielie meal in the freezer. We are even more careful when serving guests. We once found worms in a box of previously unopened, sticky-taped closed Ferrero Rocher luxury chocolates that we were going to serve with coffee.
I have tried not using the light in the pantry for a few weeks. We still got moths. I tried not ever turning the light off. We still got moths.
Apart from spraying everything with Doom and poisoning ourselves along with them, I don't know what more to do.
Where do they come from? And why do they love my pantry so? How can I get rid of these horrible bugs?
Help, please!!!
12 comments:
I have never heard of a moth infestation. Cockroaches yes, ants, yes, but not moths... bizarre. Maybe one of those zap light things outside the kitchen window...?
omg that sounds awful and annoying, shame! lol all i could think of was mothballs as I was reading, then saw that you use them but to no avail...hmm I have no idea because its your pantry so you cant just use doom foggers etc. Hopefully someone comes up with a good solution.
Wow I never heard of a moth infestation either. Bizarre. aybe you need a fumigator?
Well, I just googled and this is the one with the most you haven't tried methods. I think it's really interesting it could have something to do with the temperature in your room.
http://www.getridofthings.com/get-rid-of-moths.htm
Hope it helps. I got goosebumps thinking about having to clean it out.
oh and
I used to leave a little plate of beer out. This attracted and killed a great many moths (for me). The rest I killed by hand, with a paper towel, and patience.
posted by AlexReynolds at 10:45 AM on February 19, 2005
Or if you'd rather save beer for drinking, we've had good luck putting a bowl of dish-soapy water under a light. That worked in the kitchen anyway, although I could see rigging something like this for the closet.
I am generally bugged by anything today...insects have nothing on Piglet!
Sorry for all the posts. After a while I just had to know how to kill them... and then I had imaginary bugs flying around my head and crawling on my back.
Like when someone tells you there's lice going around the school and you scratch your head.
Oh no.
We get the same thing here from time to time, although I have to say that they never get into the sealed plastic containers or behind the labels of the tins. Sheesh! Your moths are tenacious.
Try putting out some epsom salt instead of mothballs. That works better for the fish moths as far as I know. Might work for the pantry moths too.
have you ever had an exterminator come do their magic?
That is SO bizarre! I've never heard of anyone that had a moth problem so badly. Maybe you do need a fumigator, like another commenter suggested.
I can only imagine how frustrating it must be for you, and what a shame to have all that food go to waste. I hope you guys get the problem sorted sommer very soon. x
Also, my word verifaction is "bless" - how awesome is that? :)
oh my gosh! you poor girl!!! that would kill me!!!!! I'll think of you!! *hugs* btw....we need to go do coffee or somethinng chicka....i miss you:(
I have the same issue in my pantry- but with little brown beetle thingies!!
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