Sevin, Carbaryl, is quite toxic and is not meant to be used in the house. Nothing I have ever found about controlling grain, pantry, or Indian moths has ever recommended spraying with Carbaryl inside the house. As long as the adult moths can mate and lay eggs in a food source, grains, flour, cereals, etc. they will be present. One method of control is to put these materials in a 155 degree oven for 20 to 30 minutes, which will kill any eggs and larva as well as any adults. Another method of control is to place these items in the freezer until they are to be used, and put them back when no longer being used. kimmq is kimmsr

I have found a solution to this partially. First I do not worry too much about store bugs since you can not easily prevent them but you can prevent them from hatching or at least procreating and spreading. I buy these nice 4 quart plastic containers at our local dollar tree dollar store. They are pretty good as is but I am leary of how perfect the seal is thankfully that is very easy and cheap a solution and right at the dollar store too :-) Two methods. One is the balloon method. This is good for long term storage your not going to open this often. Cut a balloon stretch it over the lip and screw on the lid. MY preferred method is hot glue. I make a nice neat "gasket" inside the lid where the lip of the plastic screw cap rests (inside the cap) let it dry fully. Screw it on. Now you have a near hermetic bug proof seal. I get some nasty infestations sometimes when people are not careful and I have never had a single bug in one of these sealed containers. Especially great for pasta and things like "hamburger helper" etc.. Ie those plastic bags they come in are nothing more than tissue paper to these bugs :-) One thing I have not done yet but I DO plan to try soon is CO2 infusion. either "spray pour" some CO2 in there and then seal it up. (its heavier than air so it will push the O2 out) OR drop a small peice of Dry ice inside. I am working on finding a nice pressure release valve one way (cheap) so I can glue one into the lid. It will force the O2 out the valve but not let O2 back in. (have not found one yet) Again good for "long term" storage. No O2 no breathing no hatching no growing and the food lasts longer. This will not kill the eggs and such though so once you release the seal if you leave it out they can grow and it can be infested IE seal it back up when your done. Thats the biggest mistake people make. The worst is putting cereal boxes back in the pantry without a seal. Rolling up the back does nothing. If you buy in bulk on sale like I do first thing I do is REMOVE the cereal from its store container check for bugs and transfer to these nice plastic containers. Every time I have an extra few dollars I go in a buy some more eventually everything will be stored in them. Mods it wold be NICE to alert people that registration is mandatory. IE the presence of the reply box implied No registration was required yet when I clicked post it presented me with a log in and no way around it. I hate registering at every random site but I also invested a lot of time forming a reply. SO I was left with the choice of all that invested time being wasted or going through yet one more registration process. The solution is to make it CLEAR you must register to post so people can decide BEFORE investing so much time in a reply :-) Here is a link that might be useful: My Home Page

We are about the same place as Stephanie-Sara, maybe a bit further. Foundations and underground storage room floor and walls all poured and waterproofing on, backfill almost finished. Garage is ready for pad which will be poured next Tuesday Aug 4th. They have started putting the floor joists in and the plywood is here for the decking. Meeting with builder and architect on Thursday to finalize window/door choices as they will be ready for them before we know it. Been fighting uphill battle with architect because I want gliders and she wants casements....whose house is it? I have won on most except a couple of small awning type which are fine. The real *working* windows will be gliders. Also appliance finalizations....still debating refrigerator. Next spring/early summer hopeful finish date.

" I don't think stores "donate" expired food. " But they do donate food that has past its "best before" date. They are not the same thing, in spite of people using the terms interchangeably all over this thread. Second Harvest picks up thousands of pounds of it a day., and US food rescue organizations do the same. Interestingly, which grocery stores (including WalMart and Costco) provide most is decided more by the manager than anyone else, even though all managers are given the go-ahead by corporate -- if they are willing to donate the dock time and staff loading of skids, then they do it. Some see the value in it (including the value of having less to throw out, because they pay for garbage by volume- less garbage means more savings). Both the US and Canada have laws protecting donors of food from liability, if donated in good faith.