5 Tips To Get Rid of Pantry Moths

Get Rid of Moths & Other Pantry Pests With These Simple Tips

You know it’s the holidays when the smell of gingerbread fills the kitchen and iced sugar cookies decorate your counters. But there is a dark side to holiday baking — pantry pests. These tiny insects tend to gather in pantries and cupboards that commonly hold stored dried products like flour, spices, nuts and dried fruit. Notorious culprits of pantry pests are moths like the Indian Meal Moth, and beetles such as the Confused Flour Beetle. Able to reproduce quickly, just a tiny amount of spilled food in the cabinet is all pantry pests need to survive and multiply. If the products they’ve infested are left untouched for long periods of time, the infestation can quickly grow out of control before you even know it.

To ensure the sack of flour you’re planning on using for your next batch of baked goods goes unharmed, it’s important to take the necessary precautions against these pantry pests. Heres five quick and easy tips to get rid of pantry pests, as well as prevent them from coming back in the future.

Tips To Get Rid of & Prevent Pantry Moths

1. Pay Attention When Grocery Shopping

Moths and other pantry pests are often brought into our homes with our groceries. _Grocery warehouses are common places for moths, rodents and other pests. Don’t buy or use any food products that are opened or damaged, as these are easy target for pantry moths and beetles. Wash or wipe your recently purchased bottles and cans with a disinfecting wipe before you put them away in your pantry to ensure they are not contaminated.

2. Store Your Food Properly

The best way to store your dried food products is by keeping them in air-tight sealed containers or jars. This keeps the pests out of your food, and also contains any pests that were already inside the product, effectively preventing them from chewing through the packaging and spreading the infestation.

3. Use Bay Leaves

Placing dried bay leaves in your containers and throughout your pantry is a great way to prevent these pests from infesting your food products. The strong scent of the bay leaf deters moths and beetles from living in your pantry and kitchen.

4. Wash Containers Before Filling With New Food

Make sure you thoroughly check and wash out any containers you’ve used previously before re-filling them with new food products. If you’ve recently dealt with a pantry pest problem, you don’t want to start the whole infestation over again by putting new food in a contaminated container.

5. Clean Your Kitchen Regularly

Prevention is the best solution to controlling pantry pests, and is something to keep up with year-round. Be sure to clean areas where spilled flour and other bits of food tend to accumulate, such as cabinets and cracks where your kitchen counters meet the floor. Keeping a clean and sanitized kitchen is the best way to ensure a pest-free kitchen.

Professional Pantry Pest Control

If you fear you already have a pantry pest infestation, or the problem is reocurring and you simply don’t want to deal with it anymore,  you may require the help of a local pest management professional. Our pest technicians have the skills, equipment, and experience to correctly identify which type of pantry pests you’re dealing with, as well as what food products they have infested. This will allow our professionals to design the best reatment plan that will fix your pantry pest problems once and for all. Our services include disposing of all contaminated food products, and intensive sanitation of your cabinets and pantries. We then use phermone traps to monitor how the treatment is going, and determine if additional steps need to be taken.

If you’d like to learn more about the pest control services we provide for beetles, moths and other pantry pests, or would like to set up a cost-free inspection of your home, contact our local pest professionals today.