<p>We have had these and weevils in the past. They seem to like flour of course, but last time we finally tracked the source to an unopened box of oatmeal. have also found they like certain spices. </p>
<p>Take *everything *out of your cabinets and go through every container. Freeze what can be frozen. We washed the cabinets then got a spray from the exterminator and sprayed the cabinets making sure to spray down crevices and nooks and crannies. I put everything in zip lock bags or plastic seal-able containers, but I did not put stuff back in the cabinets for several weeks. </p>
<p>I’ve had the moths in unopened bags and glass jars. The larvae come in with the stuff. I now put anything that I don’t go through quickly in the freezer. Glad to know about the traps though!</p>
<p>I had an infestation in a bag of Bob’s Red Mill Garbanzo flour. Threw it out immediately and checked everything in that particular cupboard and got rid of anything suspicious. I now keep flour in the fridge. Will try the traps if I get these critters again.</p>
<p>I agree with others, about keeping flour in the fridge, having things sealed and so forth. If you have an infestation, get the traps (I use the ones someone else described, the cardboard ones that look like an A frame), they work and after a while it seems to get rid of the infestation. Pet foods are attractants, it is where it started in our kitchen that way.</p>
<p><em>sigh</em> I’m reading through what all your culprits were, saying “oh, I have that, and that, and that, and that, and that…”. I think my pantry is nirvana for moths. </p>
<p>Check everything in your pantry. With a bad infestation I found them on the bottom of glass jars and even under the lip of unopened jars. I threw every single thing away. My exterminator sprayed and so far no more problems.</p>
<p>I’ve also found them inside zip bags, but don’t know if they were already in the food I stored in there or if they chewed a hole and got in.</p>
<p>They like old books, too. Another peaceful coexister here. I got mine free with birdseed. Life goes on with grains in tins and glass jars. If you turn your heat up, it seems to speed up their life cycle.</p>
<p>I also find them in my birdseed (sunflower hearts). I keep that outdoors in an aluminum can now (with a large rock on top to keep the raccoons out).</p>
<p>I haven’t had moths, but I have had these darned tiny little black bugs that seem to come out every few weeks or so. They seem to enjoy flour and sugar a lot, but I’ll find them dead just about anywhere. They seem to be able to crawl into all but the absolute tightest of seals, which has made trying to get rid of them all the more frustrating. Now I’m moving soon and trying to figure out if there’s any way to prevent carrying them with me other than throwing out half my kitchen. :(</p>
<p>No clue if they’re from me or neighboring apartments. My kitchen window doesn’t quite close all the way, and the screen doesn’t cover the window completely, so I know it’s very possible they can come in from there.</p>
<p>One of the things I’ve found to be great against these sort of bugs are the bag resealers that melt the plastic to form a seal.</p>
<p>I’ve had them 3-4 times–once in flour, once in an opened pkg of almonds, one in dry dog food bag, and once in beans. I moved the dog food, once I open the bag, to those big cans that popcorn comes in at the holidays. All dry/flour products that have been opened are in ziplocs. If I open a dry product that comes in a box but without a resealable inside bag, I put the whole thing either in plastic container or a ziploc. I only get them now when I forget something.</p>
<p>Okay, I’m thinking I’m really lucky (or totally oblivious). I recall my mother complaining about “mealybugs” in the flour, but I’ve never had them and have never even heard of pantry moths. For that matter, I remember my mother scattering mothballs everywhere and using a cedar chest to keep woolens free of moth holes, but I’ve never seen a moth in my closet or a moth hole in my clothes. (On the other hand, Sandy left a giant tree lying across my back yard atop a demolished dog run, so I’m not so lucky where it counts.)</p>
<p>One summer when I was visiting my parents, I returned to my home that was infested. I had been gone for two months. I bleached the cupboards, threw everything out and never had anything in the cupboards again that wasn’t in glass or plastic. I saved my glass jars and recycled them. I never had flying hoards of moths again.</p>
<p>So…</p>
<p>One summer when I went to stay with my elderly parents and help out, moths were flying everywhere. Deja Vu! They had put out sticky traps but I knew what to do. When they took their afternoon naps, I went on the offensive and threw out everything in the cupboards, bleached them and aired them. By summer’s end, the moths were gone never to return.</p>
<p>You’re absolutely right. Cleaning out the pantry is not a fun job! It wasn’t bugs this year, but we closed our house for the month of July while we were gone and turned off the AC during the heat wave in the Midwest. It took me a couple of days to figure out why everything was sticky, but I had a bottle of sparking wine “blow its cork,” presumably from the heat. It sprayed across the room directly at the microwave, and when the spray was gone, almost all the rest of the bottle (it was laying in a wine rack) ran down on all the shelves below. Yuk!!!</p>
<p>It’s important to know what kind of moths you’re dealing with. I had an infestation and was very worried about my wool sweaters and carpets. I bought pheromone traps for them which did no good at all. Then I captured a moth and stuck him to paper with scotch tape and took him to the offices of our local pest control company. The head of the office couldn’t have been nicer and he took photographs of my moth and sent them to his bug expert at UC Davis who identified them as a kind of grain moth. He asked if I had any ornamental grains and I said no. We agreed that I would get back in touch about extermination if the problem continued. Then I came home and discovered a sheath of wheat I’d picked up at a fruit stand and forgotten about - it was absolutely infested with the moths. Chucked it outside and my problem quickly subsided. And my sweaters were never even in danger.</p>
<p>This thread makes me think I should clean out my pantry. Everything grainy is stored in either tight sealed Tupperware, tins or glass jars. But still…it hasn’t been completely emptied out since we moved into this house. Our cat food is there but in a tightly sealed tin. I’d move it to the garage, but then…there are the mice!</p>