This is a small light gray butterfly, up to a centimeter long. It moves very quickly and chaotically, and it is extremely difficult to catch it with your hands. Most likely, you will not find it in your kitchen right away.
Firstly, because it flies at night, in the dark, and secondly, because it hides well. The larvae of food moths harm food supplies, while the butterflies themselves do not feed, but only leave clutches.
The larvae are very voracious. They chew food and leave traces of their activity.
How to get rid of food moths? Food moths can spoil almost any dry product: cereals, dried fruits, dried vegetables, dry animal food, confectionery, nuts or even tea. In contaminated food you will find clumps of cobwebs and small white worms. Of course, you cannot eat such products.
Where does it come from? Typically, the pest enters the home along with purchased products that were improperly stored before sale. Less commonly, moths can fly from a neighboring apartment to warm time of the year.
What to do if your place of residence and gets to the kitchen:
How to get rid of food moths in cereals?
If you see small worms with black heads or adult butterflies in cereals, flour or dog food, then throw these products away without hesitation. If you see only a small amount of “cobwebs” in a bulk product, then such a product can be saved.
If the moth has slightly poisoned the flour, cereals or beans, then pour the product onto a plate, baking sheet and heat in the microwave for 15 minutes. You can also use the oven minimum temperature(50 – 70 degrees). Freezing is also considered a reliable method. To do this, place a hermetically sealed bag of food in the freezer for a couple of days. In the future, you can process all dry products that you buy for future use this way. This good idea for prevention.
How to get rid of food moths at home? The interior surfaces of the cabinets should be washed with water and vinegar and then dried. Carry out the same simple processing with all the cans and other containers for bulk goods that you have in the house.
It goes without saying that in the future, dry foods should be stored in glass, plastic and tin jars with tight-fitting lids, and not in open store packaging.
For the future, set up a trap such as the Raptor, or the lesser known but very effective Aeroxon. Place it between jars with those products that especially attract the pest. This trap works by attracting butterflies. They fly into the trap and stick to the sticky tape.
This way you can subsequently control the presence of moths in your home: if you see a new pest on the trap, .
Another way: do not lure, but rather scare away. The main thing in this matter is the pungent odor, which the insect cannot stand.
How to get rid of food moths using folk remedies? There are a number of time-tested tips that will help repel moths from your supplies and drive them out of the house:
Use sachets to pack spices: fabric bags that will protect your shelves from clogging and prevent the strong smell of spices from deepening in the kitchen.
What to do if moths appear again and again? Many housewives, tired of endless attempts to get rid of an uninvited neighbor, resort to insecticides and other poisons.
I don't think it's worth doing this anyway. But if you start using an insecticide, do not overuse it; wet cleaning and change the drug sometimes.
Let's say you do everything possible for prevention: you heat or freeze the food that you bring into the house, use a trap, often ventilate the shelves and wipe them with vinegar, but moths still appear often and persistently?
Then we can assume that there is some way that the pest constantly gets into your kitchen. Try to find and neutralize this “channel”.
Anti-mosquito nets may help you, which need to be installed not only on the windows, but also on ventilation and any other exits leading to neighboring apartments. Glue and coat all the smallest cracks through which the pest can enter the kitchen. Together with others in simple ways This fight will certainly help you get rid of kitchen moths for a really long time.
Fighting a pest like moths is a difficult task. Best method– make it a habit not to neglect simple things preventive measures. Geranium on the window, a bouquet of lavender, a reliable ventilation grill, orange peels and garlic cloves in jars...
Olga Nikitina
Reading time: 8 minutes
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Every housewife can get a gray-brown butterfly (food moth). The reason may be purchased bags of cereal, flour and other dry goods. bulk products, infested with moth larvae. Moths are attracted to cereals that have been stored for a long time, and, going to their goal, neither closed packs nor plastic bags stop them.
First you need to get rid of cereals that have already been visited by moths.
After a thorough audit, you can fight food moths with proven folk remedies:
If there are moths, this does not mean that you are a bad housewife. The reason for the appearance of insects is in cereals “with bugs” and in other improperly stored products that you bring home from the market or supermarket. Where do moths come from? It settles in flour, cereals, dried fruits, and then quickly multiplies in warm conditions. And before deciding how to get rid of food moths, you need to find out where exactly they have settled. And for this we need a short excursion into biology.
Most often, moths in the kitchen appear from contaminated products. But it can also fly in from the street, through a window, or from neighbors, through a ventilation grill. Small gray butterflies are not dangerous in themselves - they only drink water. But within a few days of life, each individual manages to lay up to 200-400 eggs in food, and from them the larvae of food moths and yellowish worms appear. Affected foods are not suitable for food, because they do not look appetizing at all. But the main problem not this, but the fact that the larvae live for 2 weeks, and eat continuously all this time. So even small butterflies need to be fought if you don’t want all your supplies to be completely ruined.
Remember that moths in the kitchen are not at all the same as black midges, which quickly become infested by rotten fruit. But both in how to get rid of midges in the kitchen and in how to deal with moths there is a common main rule - cleanliness. It’s easy to understand that you need to take effective measures - just see one or two flying butterflies or find cereals with a thin cobweb among the supplies.
When you understand where the moth comes from, you can begin the fight. Most often, special pheromone traps are used. Such traps contain a substance inside that is attractive to insects. The butterfly flies inside the trap and then cannot get out because it is glued to a special adhesive substance inside. Traps are conveniently fixed inside cabinets and on any surface. Their body is made of colored plastic, so they will not spoil the kitchen. The trap lasts for 1-1.5 months.
To remove butterflies, you can use the following folk remedies:
All folk remedies that help remove insects are based on the fact that they are very sensitive to odors. But it is not advisable to use aerosol insecticides, since they will be used to treat boxes where food is stored.
When deciding how to get rid of food moths, do not forget about prevention:
Moths in the kitchen are not only flying moths, but also their pupae, larvae and eggs.
Food moths happen different types. Most often in the kitchen of a city apartment you can find: flour moth, a little less often - cocoa moth (very similar to clothes moth) and the southern barn moth (fighting it is more difficult than others). Where do they come from even in the purest kitchen cabinets?
In this material you will find step by step instructions about how to get rid of food moths, what preventive measures to take to avoid them reappearance and how to save food if you hate to throw it away.
Moth eggs look like small white clumped grains, similar to semolina. The larvae first look like small whitish worms, and then they grow to 1.27 cm and have black or brown heads. Another clear sign of food contamination is cobwebs, as in the photo below.
To get rid of food moths, the first thing you need to do is:
By the way, if you doubt whether there are moths in your kitchen at all or, say, whether you managed to get them out after cleaning, then inspect the room at night - adult moths will gather around a burning chandelier.
How to catch adult individuals that have already scattered into the corners of cabinets and kitchens? Males (by the way, harmless, but fertilizing females) can be caught using a glue trap (photo below). The principle of its operation is simple - a trap treated with female pheromone attracts males and “catches” them, and without males, the moth, of course, will not be able to reproduce. Thus, pheromone traps will help prevent the reappearance of insects.
Females will have to be killed using traditional methods - with a fly swatter or rolled up newspaper, since they fly poorly and slowly, this is not so difficult to do.
So, you've thrown out the source product and items that show obvious signs of contamination, but what about the rest of the supplies that appear clean on the outside or were only slightly contaminated?
The easiest way is to throw them away, but if you wish, you can save potentially contaminated food in the following two ways:
Keep in mind that the first processing method, although longer, retains all the vitamins and nutritional properties of the food.
Remember that these folk remedies will repel adult moths, preventing them from laying eggs in products and on shelves, but they will not affect the larvae. Moreover, if you suddenly place a package of contaminated cereal on a shelf with lavender, the moth larvae will not die in it, and the butterflies that appear later will no longer be afraid of the smell of lavender. That is why it is necessary to combat domestic pests comprehensively.
The following tips will help you avoid the recurrence of moths:
Food moths in an apartment are a source of many troubles. Moreover, moths in cereals appear even in kitchens where perfect order and cleanliness. For effective fight with pests you will need minimal knowledge about their life and what if your kitchen is chosen by completely different types of insects?
An inconspicuous gray or brown butterfly, about a centimeter long, flying chaotically around the room, landing on the surface of the ceiling, walls and food, annoyingly circling right before your eyes - this is a food moth. Its life is short, only half a month, but the larvae exist quietly for two months, and they are the ones who contaminate food. The adult moth drinks water (which is why it can be seen in a container of water or near a sink) and does not eat anything. But the harm they cause is colossal; one moth lays up to four hundred eggs, from which the same larvae then appear, crawling in the rump.
Food moth - types:
But if a moth lives in the kitchen, then it only eats food and is absolutely indifferent to clothes.
Food moths can be seen in bags of flour, bags of cereals, tea, some spices, nuts, and even in dog or cat food. Usually she appears in the apartment with food in which larvae have appeared. It is not uncommon to buy such products in a store. This occurs due to poor quality processing of goods, unfavorable storage conditions and other negative factors. It's warm in the kitchen and moths multiply at the speed of light, infecting other products. In some cases, food moths enter the apartment through ventilation from neighbors, but such cases are very rare.
The larvae, in addition to eating food, easily chew the bags in which they are stored, leave their skin and feces in them, and dead larvae remain there. You should not eat contaminated cereals or any other foods.
Remedies for moths
Getting rid of pests is a difficult process, but independent control can yield positive results. Agents used against food moths are divided into traditional methods And chemicals. But before you get rid of food moths in your apartment, you need to identify the source of the infestation.
Before processing, you first need to find out which of the products caused the appearance of insects. Do an audit, take out all the contents from cupboards and cabinets. If there is the slightest trace of infection, throw away the food without regret. Pour what the pests haven’t reached into jars or tightly sealed containers; in extreme cases, store them temporarily in the refrigerator.
Wipe the cabinet and shelves where moths are found in cereals with soap and water, and then rinse. Carefully go over the surfaces with a sponge soaked in vinegar. Let the cabinet dry completely with the doors open.
Moths in cereals can be destroyed using insecticides. Efficiency is high, but they must be used with
extreme caution due to high toxicity and negative effects on health.
Insecticides against moths:
There are traps whose smell attracts moths, especially males, which helps reduce the population.
