We have a plague of moths in our pantry! I can't see what is attracting them! I just saw like 20 of them on the walls and ceiling now! How can I get RID OF THESE PESKY BUGS!!

I can give you some suggestions from experience, because we had a problem with white moths in our house. You can try an aerosol insecticide, but it did not work in our case. We first had to find out where they were coming from, and traced it to a bag of opened dry dog food that we had stored. When we located the source, we found hundreds of crawling larva feasting on the dog food, which we promptly disposed of. Now that the source was removed, we purchased a few insect bombs that we purchased at Walmart, (or K-Mart carried them also), and fumigated the house. That was the end of the moths. Here is a link on pantry pests that may be of further help. Hope this helps clean up the pantry.

Pantry Pests

"What ujay said"!

Sher, you'll have to check everything in your pantry...any dry goods whether they are opened or not. Things like flour, cereal, dog food, pasta, nuts, etc... These are the things that they feast on and just because they are unopened does not mean that they won't be infested. Most often, the little larvae/eggs come in the packaged foods from the plants - just sitting there waiting to hatch!! Anything that could potentially have the slighest space could be the problem (like flour bags that are not air tight to start with).
Good luck - I had that happen once and threw away EVERYTHING!!! I couldn't stomach the possibility that anything could have eggs in it (besides my egg container in the fridge )

thanks so much for the help!

Now.....to go a-hunting!!

EWWWWWWW EWWWWWWWW EWWWWWWW yuck yuck yuck!!!

I found em those little buggers! In my blueberry pancake mix!!

{Shuddering} I hate bugs!

One word:
Bengal!

Gross huh Sher??? Make sure you check other things in there too...just in case...once they are there, they often move into whatever else is available.

Insecticides with your food??? I'd pass...
Hot soapy water to wash out the closet should do the trick...

Camphor come to mind. These release a camphor gas which drives the buggers away. Not to be confused with moth balls, though both smell similar.

Camphor comes in oil form, I would suggest damping a bit of cloth and put it in an old nylon stocking and hang the thing from the ceiling.

Also Cedar works well. This can be purchased in chip form or you can get thin sheets of it from any home improvement center.

As you discovered the moths were in a food product, most likely the eggs were in the batter from the plant (acceptable standards for the FDA BTW)

When it comes to flours, grains, and similar dry goods the rule of thumb is to separate and to seal in a plastic container like tupperware OR in glass jars. Keeping the food stuffs separate will prevent infestations from taking over the pantry.

Also mark on a bit of tape the Expiration date (found on most boxes as a date stamp)

When purchasing new stock, always take the time to pull out the older stock and put the new stock behind, thus keeping your goods in circulation.

Cheers

David