benjesbride I share your fear. This is a new kitchen and pantry so I do not want to live through that again.

I too live in So Cal.

Aliris 19-- So not just any glass jar? A hermetically sealed jar? Where do you buy those and are they really expensive? But you still had problems? UGH.

I've gotten mine (just a couple so far) at the container store.

We had them a few years ago. Horrible critters. Our source was walnuts. We keep all nuts in a freezer now. We keep most things we won't use in a few weeks in canning jars for look and function and have had no trouble since. LInk to how to avoid or manage

I freeze all grains, rice, lentils, nuts, etc. as soon as they come into the house for 10 days, kills any bug, larva and their eggs, then they go into screw-top containers in the pantry, haven't had a single problem since I began doing this some years ago.

Be afraid, be very afraid.

My husband went to buy traps at lowes the other day and he saw one flying around the bird feed. He mentioned it to a clerk and she said they have a known problem with the seed feed and theyre waiting on the vendor to fix it. What?

This is what the pantry moth (Indian meal moth) looks like. Note the distinct silvery stripe across bronzey wings.

I assumed the moths I saw were just your standard outdoor moths until a couple became an explosion. As soon as you see just one of these, I recommend purging your cupboards of all foodstuffs, vacuuming every nook and cranny and wiping everything down. Put a trap in the cabinet if you don't already have one. I remember reading multiple comments about the larvae pupating in the holes where shelf pins go, so clean in those too.

Even after my warnings, my mom and close friends still keep food in their pantries in their original plastic bag packaging. I wish they would learn from our nightmare last year, but I hope they're spared.

I had pantry moths many years ago and then purchased Click-Clacks. I love those containers. They look pretty beat after 20 years, but still doing the job. I think with a complete remodel and a good cleaning you should be good.

Fruit flies are another that got me. Used apple cider vinegar with a drop of undistributed Dawn dishwashing to break the barrier. All those little guys drowned pretty promptly.

YIKES!!! never had them, but i will be vigilant now.!!! thanks for all the great info benjesbride., much appreciated!!

The only thing that has worked for me is to put anything that could carry the larvae or adult moths, into the freezer, as said above, for quite a while, if not for good. Most any grains pasta seeds nuts, spices, etc. Including dog and cat food which I've found moths love. That's what started my last infestation. I think it's because they don't have any preservatives in the brand I buy.

Now in my house everyone goes to the freezer or fridge for the snacks and cereal. Only cans in my pantry. I'm determined to end the tyranny of these flying pests once and for all! Everyone's got them here since the weather's been warm for much longer this year.

What do you store your pet food in to keep them out?

Never heard of them. I am assuming they get into regular cabinets as well?

Are they particular to certain parts of the country?

zorroslw1 - How it might go is... Buy brown rice and throw it in the pantry. Unbeknownst to you the rice has teeny tiny eggs in it. You might eat the rice fast and live in blissful ignorance, or... you forget about the rice or you decide to do a Whole 30 or whatever and in the meantime those eggs (one female can lay up a ridiculous amount, like hundreds!) hatch and become larvae. The larvae are super happy eating the rice and then they eat through the bag and crawl to cracks, crevices, other food containers to eat some more and pupate. The pupa emerge as adult moths who don't eat, they live to mate and lay more of those teeny tiny eggs... You see a moth or two in the kitchen and think nothing of it and then bam, one night you notice a lot of moths. Hmm, they're really drawn to the light at night. You google images of moths and you start to freak out because a curse you didn't even know existed is now happening to you. And the crazy begins.

I'm in Portland, Oregon. Of my local friends and family I've talked to about pantry moths only one person has had an experience with pantry moths one time. Quaker oats were the culprit in her situation.

My husband went to buy traps at lowes the other day and he saw one flying around the bird feed. He mentioned it to a clerk and she said they have a known problem with the seed feed and theyre waiting on the vendor to fix it. What?

While looking at rugs at the local Target a few weeks ago, I noticed carpet moths flittering about the baseboards there, below the shelves. (What are the odds that I would buy ANY sort of rug from Target after that? ZERO!) So it goes with these guys: many food products can arrive with the larvae of the pantry moth, so it's only a matter of luck, time, and/or vigilance.

OMG now I have to worry about carpet moths too? I've got to stop reading this thread...

We had a tiny tan moth the other night in the house. Don't know what kind of moth It was. Now I'm worried.

When I had moths, the dog food was stored in a 10 gallon Rubbermaid bin in the kitchen. I doubt it kept 100% of the moths out but the food got used up fast enough that it didn't seem to be a problem.

I had them in the pantry and the upper cabinet where food was kept but fortunately they never got in the spice drawer, so they may not get into drawers quite as easily.

I think the moths came from a carton of Quaker oats but it may have been the big bag of brown rice (if it wasn't that they certainly hit it first - nothing like putting a pot of rice on the stove and seeing a bunch of larvae float to the surface :O )

I store my pet food in rubbermaid too, after I have put it in the freezer for a couple of weeks. For my compostables I have one container in the fridge and and one in the freezer of my fridge and fill those until garbage day. I don't like contributing to the fly and fruit fly populations.

Oh, great - pantry moths - something else to worry about! Fruit flies seem to have evolved over the decades and are more prolific and hardier - anyone else notice? Years ago, they all died off went the temperature dropped; now apparently thanks to natural selection, only the strongest survived, and around here, now seem unaffected by the cold. I gotta go now, and put my Costco Quinoa in the freezer.

Speaking of evolved, I remember when I was a kid how mosquitos would just hover and fly slowly. Now they're so fast.

Or my reflexes are just slower now

I have seen bay leaf packets with larvae in them ...

With pantry design ... minimise cracks and crevices to minimise places they can pupate.

• Caulk ALL baseboards and door trim, top and bottom, with a bead of caulk as you install it.

• Make sure all drywall corners are caulked.

• If you have drawer units and cabinets in there, caulk and seal around the carcase. Also do any interior joints to keep pupae from getting under the carcase.

• Use wire shelves if possible

• If you have fixed-position shelves, caulk the support ledges as you install them. Leave the shelves loose so you can remove them and clean them.

• I've seen pupae in the holes for adjustable shelf pins! No cure for that.

• If you have adjustable shelves with the uprights and brackets, the holes in the uprights are hospitable to pupae. Plan to vacuum regularly

• Seal around all electrical fixtures.The "energy saving" foam inserts are useful to minimise pest hiding spots.

Prevention ...

• Do NOT use shelf liner paper.

• Check the hygiene of where you buy bulk foods. If you see moths around the bins, notify the manager and leave.

• FREEZE incoming high-risk foods for a short period to kill any eggs or larvae. (a week?)

• Do NOT keep bird seed anywhere near your kitchen. It's the most common source, followed by other pet foods, which get contaminated at the market.

• Keep the high-risk sources in plastic or glass jars containers with good seals (they may pupate in the threads, but can't make it into the food).

• Regularly vacuum up spills, wash down shelves, clean the underside of turntables (they pupate under the spinner!)

• Those cure storage baskets with cloth liners ... moth hospices! Don't use them in a pantry.

Me, too, AliceinJersey! Carpet moths AND pantry moths? What other gross critters do I need to be aware of? How have I lived so long without being aware of all this? I'm guessing some parts of the country must be more susceptible? Now I'm paranoid.

I store a lot of things in Mason jars so I just bought some silicone seals to provide extra protection.

There are also flour weevils, but those are pretty easy to deal with. And anything is better than cockroaches... except bed bugs ;)

And .. do not top up containers. Use all of the grain or beans, then wash the container before refilling it.

Oh dear- we are adopting a puppy soon. Guess we will store most of the food in the garage and a smaller container inside. I also need some freezer space to put the food in first.

Weevils and cockroaches and bed bugs, OH MY! Never had any. Knocking on wood again. Knock, knock, KNOCK!

Storing most of the food in the garage is a good idea but if you buy a good brand of dog food (not the crap they sell at the supermarket that has been sitting on the shelves forever) and store it in sealed containers I really don't think you need to worry about freezing it. I have never seen moths in the local pet food store I buy my dog's food at or in the petsmart dog food aisle. I buy it in 30lb bags and they last 6weeks. If I wanted to freeze it I could only fit about 2 days worth of food at a time, which wouldn't be practical at all.

Puppies are enough work without worrying about decontaminating your dog food.

Thankfully we've never had those either. In our last house, though, I started seeing these teeny tiny dots on our kitchen white vinyl flooring, just thinking it was a speck of dirt. Until, of course, I got down on the floor and it was some kind of hard bug. Then there were times it was a soft teeny bug. Then we started seeing ALOT of them.

I called the exterminator and they said they were carpet beetles. I was wondering why they were on the vinyl. He said if we are seeing them like this, then we had an infestation of them. Did that give me the heebie jeebies!!!

We ripped out the carpeting and pad and sprayed. To tell you the truth, I was scared to put in more carpeting!

I store the cat and dog's dry food in re-used cat litter buckets (obtained from my neighbors, since I don't buy that brand). So far they seem to be effective in keeping the moths out of the food; I've not had it infested although I did have the moths in the house. BTW, the traps that have the black & white striped sticky panel along with a lure seem to work better than the triangle shaped ones. I found that after removing and sealing food sources, I needed to put traps in the bookshelves and living room -- they laid eggs in my cookbooks and bookshelves

@designsaavy - there are different types of mosquitoes, and 3 are common in the US. Some are better fliers than others! The mosquitoes you remember from your childhood might be one type (Culex pipiens) while the ones you see now might be another that are better fliers (Aedes albopictus). There's a great, recent Stuff You Should Know podcast if you're interested! I had no idea.

Also, I just added a new set of canisters to my Amazon wish list.

"hermetic" just means "air-tight"--so anything that seals well. You'd probably want to get a lid w/ a slight rubbery ring around the inside.

I've done some research. Here are some others kitchen insects that you should be worried about: Indian meal moth, saw-toothed grain beetle, cigarette beetle, drugstore beetle. You are welcome everyone.

I have a lot of wine bottles that hang around here for months from party to party. Can these things live on bottles?

Oh yeah, and thanks Alice!!!!!!

If it eases anyone's pest fear burden, Pantry moths and Indian meal moths are the same thing :-)

Yeah, Thanks Alice......to the moon!

groooooooooooooooooooooossssssssssssss!

This thread is giving me the heebie-jeebies! Was at my mother's house in VT about 10 years ago when I noticed something moving in the cabinets in the basement kitchen. ACK! I spent the next 48 hours scouring the place. My DS had recently undergone open heart surgery and my mother said it was my way of straightening out the universe. Nothing ever returned, but I still am cautious when I open the doors...

The only easy and for-sure way to get rid of these things is to burn the house down. We had them living up in the can lights in the ceiling. After a year of storing *everything* in tightly sealed glass jars, with all flour, beans, rice, pasta, and other grains kept in the freezer, plus long-acting commercial insecticide behind and underneath the cabinets (and in the can lights) we did manage to get rid of them.

"Hodgson's Mill" products routinely come contaminated with them, as well as grains out of the "organic" bins at the grocery. Thats where our infestation came from. Any such product should go straight into the deep freeze and stay there.

As if this thread needs more frightening thoughts... isn't it true that putting products in glass or in the freezer might stop an infestation, but aren't you still eating the insect larvae? I might rethink our diet. Forget so-called healthy brown rice and oatmeal. Stock up on Cheez-whiz and Turkey Jerky.

but aren't you still eating the insect larvae?

I know! This is creeping me out. It took me a long time to get over the fact commercial products are allowed to have a certain amount of bug parts in them. Gross! Wish I hadn't remembered that. Now I'll have the heebie-jeebies whenever I eat again until I suppress it.

All food has bug (and worse) parts in it. Such is life. Less now than ever, which is probably part of the reason why our immune systems have become so wimpy and autoimmune disorders are on the rise. Bugs are actually a pretty good food source for people, they are, after all, what we evolved eating.

@raee_gw ... Are these the traps you are referring to?

http://www.gardensalive.com/product/cupboard-moth-trap-1/pest-control

Ack!! That would scare anyone out of the pantry. Like a giant fly catcher. I prefer the little tent ones I saw by Safer. You only need one in the pantry at a time as I understand it. I have not bought them yet as pantry is still under construction.

If I saw that many on a moth catcher I would know I had an infestation and the pantry would be emptied and disinfected! I would expect as soon as you saw 1-2 moths on a catcher you would start examining the pantry thoroughly!

designsavvy - lol. They're probably a different species!

benjesbride, raebutt (what a name?! lol) - sorry; I'm a bad contributor here -- I used to lurk way too much some while ago but am completely out of the habit now ....

My experience - it was actually a really long time ago now and I don't remember well. What I bought though was not "hermetically sealed" - I'm not sure, to tell you the truth, what that means practically speaking.

What I bought at first was a whole large bunch of small to huge (and expensive) glass jars with those wire snaps and a gasket about the glass lid. I thought those would keep the air out but it's not so. Or at least those moths got around. As others have noted, they can and seem to "worm" their way in and around jar top threads even. They are so gross I hate thinking about this....

I honestly don't remember what happened long ago. I remember giving up on buying those jars because it wasn't helping. I think I had OK luck with just taking juice jars and screwing them mind-bogglingly tight. But it wasn't reliable and it sure wasn't fun to open those things. That's when I had The Conversation.

They recommended Cambro food service containers. I was skeptical because they don't pretend to be air-tight. Again, it's seemingly worked for me though I'm sure the instant I type this we'll be invaded. You can buy these containers large enough to hold a 25lb bag of flour, which I do. I hesitate to confess this here because - speaking of gross - I'm sure many of you will be hugely disapproving of many aspects of the following story. But here goes: we left the country for a year and I left a bunch - maybe a half dozen - of these containers with grains and food stuffs in them, with those trusty bay leaves: not a speck. Again, I swear I can hear those little wings get fired up by the challenge to hear this! lol

So that's my experience. As mentioned I did have that infestation recently in rice that was not protected. At the advice of a friend I tossed that stuff in the freezer in a bag, shook it and sieved it (talk about gross) and then since rice gets washed before using anyway, I ate the stuff up. Protein's protein, right?

OK, I just read this whole thread -- you guys are very funny. There was a Scientific American themed issue on food (that was great) a few years back with a story on the tolerances for non-foodstuffs. Talk about gross. Oh dear .... I'm thinking about this now and I'll revert instead to just thinking about those flour moths -- oh thank you so much for posting -- not just one but many! -- pictures of them. shudder.

I agree about these things coming into the house via some grocer's distributor's warehouse. I first saw them 40 years ago in a box of cat food. You open the box top and there are strings everywhere, then stuff starts flying out -- oh, ick.

The truth of the matter really is: it is all just protein. We all probably routinely eat far grosser stuff just when we fail to wash our hands.

There's a photo somewhere of my pantry ... I wonder if I can even find my old photobucket? Here it is ----- drat -- how do you insert photobucket pics in this new format? Does it even still use/allow html? Here's the link maybe you can just get there this way: http://s1082.photobucket.com/user/aliris/media/IMGP0930.jpg.html?sort=3&o=157 ---- but it's one heck of a lot fuller and messier now. You can't see the food service bins on the outside part; they're inside the cupboards -- except of course when they aren't, which is reality nowadays. ;)

Twice I brought them home in dry dog food, six months apart. I returned the first bag and the second. When I took the second bag back, I was boldly told it's an ongoing problem with that brand of food, due to packaging. I'll never buy another bag of Simply Nourish again. Matter of fact, I won't buy any dog food from that store chain again. It is there own brand, Google. Look for stringy silks in the food. The first bag was totally infested it, silks, bugs flying out.....awful.

Allris19 - Thanks for the post of your pantry.. being gone from GW did not diminish your posting skills. I cannot seem to post pictures yet! As for my name, well I had no idea when I signed up and lurked, then started to post, that people here become friends and associate personalities and talents with those sign on names! LOL I would have been more creative than to use an abbreviation of my actual name!

Funny how this thread has caught on and how many people have had this problem. I am grateful for the shared experience (unfortunately) as well as the ideas for prevention. Thank you everyone!