How can I get rid of pantry moths?

Video Transcript:

How to get rid of panty moths?

Today we’re going to show you what to do when little moths start flying around the kitchen. What are these things, where do they come from? 99% of the time you’re looking at an Indian meal moth that was brought back here from the pet shop or from the grocery store.

How did the moth get into my pantry?

It was already there, it could have been an egg that was laid but what happens is that eggs are gonna sit there for a little while, eventually hatch into a small little worm. the little one is going to go out and it’s going to form a little cocoon just like a butterfly will and what comes popping out of a cocoon, a beautiful Indian meal moth. about that long and comes flying around the kitchen looking for a partner. Ground zero, right here, a pantry, a typical kitchen pantry. So what do we need?

What does the pantry moth look like?

Most important tool that you need to use on a pantry moth hunt is a flashlight. okay and if you’re short like me and you chair. What are we looking for? Well we’re looking for any little larvae, okay this is going to be a small white worm with kind of a dark colored head. It’s about this long, maybe 3/8  to 5/8 of an inch.

Take everything out of the pantry and clean

The other thing you’re going to have to do today, we’re going to take everything out of here. Okay that didn’t take long. We’ve got everything out of this pantry except the pantry moth pests. I’m going to use this pantry moth trap to monitor what is going on in case we miss something while we’re cleaning things out. The nice thing about doing a pantry moth job is you don’t really need insecticides but you do need a pantry moth trap and this is not just a sticky trap because pantry moths are kind of unique and what they need, and just like everybody else sex is a big part of what they need.

Pantry moth traps are used to lure the male moth

So we’re going to give every little male that pops out as a pantry moth adult, we’re gonna give him a little pantry moth sex pheromone knowing he flies over to hooked up he’s gonna get trapped in this glue. Honey, can you put all this stuff back now? The word got out we were doing this work and pretty soon the phone started ringing and now we find a kitchen that’s got a classic infestation let’s take a look.

Trap the pantry moth and get rid of them

 A lot of these have probably recently hatched so a lot of those guys have already come out of their cocoon and they are flying around, creating a big mess in this kitchen.  So we’re going to trap them out and get rid of this problem. And that’s a end of the pantry month pest problem.