Got home from a very long, trying trip today, and opened one of the kitchen cabinets to be greeted by a veritable horde of pantry moths flying out. Just enough to really make my day. Anybody out there got a cure for these irritating bugs with wings? I couldn't find anything in the archives, so thought I would start a new one for the pests list.

-- Julie (rjbk@together.net), August 20, 2001

Answers

It has been my experience that they come in the bulk,, foods that I buy,so after you kill these ones keep all perishables in glass or metal.I have had the little bug-gers chew thru cereal boxes,bags of pasta,and those little packages like hot chocolate .So know what does not go in glass goes in the freezer!!!Leaving bay leaves on your shelves is supposed to help too.

-- teri murphy (dnsmacbeth@aol.com), August 20, 2001.

After you have gotten thrown out your flour/cereal products--put what you can fit in the freezer. I found that the little buggers could get into the rubbermaid/tupperware cereal containers and certainly into my glass flour/sugar containers. Freezing was the only option.

To get rid of the ones there already--leave a glass of orange juice out at night--they are attracted and drown in it.

Sorry--it happened to me--I finally had to start being careful not to buy large quantities at low prices at stores like shopperswarehouse, et. al.

-- Ann Markson (tngreenacres@hotmail.com), August 20, 2001.

Put bay leaves in all of your containers of flour and wheat products. As mentioned above, everything should be in sealed containers. If you live in an area that has eucalyptus trees, some branches placed on shelves or hung in the pantry is a good thing. Eucalyptus is a natural insect repellent.

-- Mary in East TN (barnwood@preferred.com), August 20, 2001.

Julie, I would love to say "go to the older messages" but I think you're right. There is a little in the old "TimeBomb 2000" forums, but less than I remember, and it's not easy to find - most of it was probably about how to avoid this, rather than how to treat it. As said above, I understand that freezing all grain and cereal and flour products (my memory says at least 3 days, others say longer) will kill the insects and eggs, and is a good precautionary step when you bring stuff into the house. I also believe bay leaves will deter them (or lavender, or rosemary or thyme or virtually any strong aromatic, but bay leaves are a handy size and shape and they're tough). Go through all your staples - if they're too disgusting, toast them in the oven or otherwise cook them, then compost them or feed them to animals. If you can live with it, sieve them, then freeze them. Clean the cupboards rigourously, try the orange juice suggestion if you like for 24 hours (I'm not too frightened by insecticides used carefully - I'd just spray inside the empty cupboards, then close the doors for an hour, then repeat), then wipe the inside of the cupboard with an aromatic - say eucalyptus oil. You've got at least 3 days to do all this while your staples are freezing. If you can't freeze all the staples at once, work your way through them steadily, and try to keep the untreated ones outside the house until you get to them. Treat them all - even the ones which were OK probably have eggs by now.

-- Don Armstrong (darmst@yahoo.com.au), August 20, 2001.

Most hardware stores carry traps now for them, glue base with a phermone to atrack them work real well. www.gardensalive.com

-- kathy h (ckhart55@earthlink.net), August 20, 2001.

meant to say www.gardensalive carrys them, thats what I get for sending with out proof reading first.

-- kathy h (ckhart55@earthlink.net), August 20, 2001.

I think Don pretty well covered it. Happened to me years ago. Brought them in in a large bag of rice. They got into everything before I knew what hit. If you don't have a lot of open staples it should be too hard to get rid of them.

-- diane (gardiacaprines@yahoo.com), August 20, 2001.