How to Get Rid of Pantry Moths and Worms (2024)

You open a bag of whole wheat flour, a box of cereal, or a bag of dog food only to find little worms, moths, or even some webs.Ew! Here’s how to get rid of these pantry pests, such as pantry moths orworms.

What Are PantryMoths?

You’ve just encountered the Indian meal moth, perhaps the most common among the “pantry pests.” These moths can infest bags or boxes of flour, grains, dried beans, seeds, nuts, cereals, baking chocolate, cake mixes, rice, nuts, dried fruit, dog food, birdseed, teas, herbs, spices, potpourri mixtures, and even decorative wreaths that include nuts, fruits, and/orseedheads.

The University of Florida cooperative extension describes what you’ve just seen this way: “Most of the ‘damage’ to stored products occurs when the larvae spin massive amounts of silk that accumulate fecal pellets, cast skins, and egg shells in foodproducts.”

Not a very appetizingimage.

Where Do Pantry Moths ComeFrom?

Although you may need to do some serious cupboard cleaning, don’t lay the blame for the infestation on your poor housekeeping. Meal moths probablylaid those eggs at a food-packaging facility or in the bulk bins at the natural foodstore.

After mating, the half-inch long gray/brown female meal moth finds a suitable environment for laying her eggs—as many as 400 at once. When the eggs hatch, the larvae feed and grow for several weeks before spinning a cocoon (pupa), from which emerges an adult moth. Depending on the temperature, food source, and other factors, the meal moth’s life cycle lasts from a month to 10 months orlonger.

Are Pantry MothsHarmful?

The good news: This pest does notcause disease, even if you accidentally cook and eat a few larvae (gross), and it doesn’t escape your foodstuffs to eat its way through your fabrics or furniture. It likes the same foods that you and your petslike.

The bad news: Indian meal moths can be difficult to eradicate, especially if they’ve completed their life cycle and dispersed throughout yourpantry.

How to Control PantryMoths

• First, get the infested flour and any other infested products you might find out of your house. Don’t just throw them in the trash unless you plan on taking the trash out right away. You could also dig a hole away from the house and bury the infested product(s) in thesoil.
• Don’t store that trash in the garage or basem*nt while you wait for trash pickup or your next trip to thedump.
• Then, remove everything from your cupboards and food storage areas, including cans and glass jars. Vacuum and scrub all surfaces. Remove and replace torn or peeling shelf liners. Using a flashlight, pay special attention to the corners and the undersides of shelves, as well as to cracks or holes in shelving.
• Meal-moth larvae have legs, and often move quite far from their original home. You may find larvae and pupae tucked away in door hinges, backs of door knobs, and corners of wire baskets; underneath shelves, and around the edges of jar lids, cans, and non-food items also stored in your pantry orcupboard.
• The larvae can chew through paper and plastic. If (like me) you tend to keep an assortment of nuts, fruits, and grains bought from bulk storage bins and stored in plastic or paper bags, check every bag for openings that could have allowed entry of meal-moth larvae or for holes the larvae may have chewedthemselves.
• If you have concerns, place any items that seem intact with no signs of damage to the food inside, in the freezer at 0° or belowfor four days. That will kill any eggs that might bepresent.
• Now, resolve to store all pantry edibles in sealed glass or metal containers as soon as you bring the food products into your home. If a product is infested, the larvae won’t be able to escape the container to contaminate otherproducts.
• Keep small bags of spices in the refrigerator orfreezer.
• Keep pet foods and birdseed away from the pantry in covered metal containers in a laundry room, garage or outsideshed.
• Hang seed-and-fruit wreaths outside. Better yet, purchase or make wreaths of twigs or evergreens that don’t containedibles.
• Consider placing some meal-mothpheromone traps (widely available online andin hardware, garden, and home-supply stores). These traps monitor the presence of meal moths, and perhaps prevent a future infestation. The traps work by attracting the male moths, who then become stuck to glue boards and die, unable to fertilize female moths. (Warning: Some folks find the glue traps too gruesome, since the trapped moths aren’t killed quickly, but flutter for some time before dying.)

  Note: Don’t be deterred by negative comments from others who claim the traps didn’t work, and now they have moths flying all around their homes. These folks are probably aren’t seeing meal moths, but rather one or more of the many other Lepidopterans (butterflies and moths) that commonly visit homeinteriors.

Finally, please don’t use insecticides to kill meal moths. Not only are they unlikely to be effective, but many aren’t safe for use aroundfood.

See more about pantry pests—mice!

Here are some more management techniques from ourreaders!

• Add a fewbay leaves to each container of stored seeds, flour, grains, ordried fruit. Also, if you have one, your cookiejar.
• Sprinkle diatomaceous earth around the edges and in the corners of your pantryshelves.
• Look way beyond your pantry for moths, webs and/or larvae, e.g., around your ceilings and the wallsof your food-storagespaces.

Do you have or have you had pantry moths? What did you do to get rid ofthem?