Pantry Pests

Surprises can be truly great. There is nothing better than opening the door and seeing a longtime relative or maybe a friend from high school you haven’t seen in years. However, surprises aren’t all that great when they come in the form of a pest swimming in your Corn Flakes. Unfortunately, that is something you might end up dealing with when pantry pests take over the home. And they’ll take over the home if given the chance. Instead of assuming the small, crawling critter jumped into your bowl after the fact, have you ever considered that it was part of the recipe? Maybe it was already in the box of cereal? With pantry pests, this is a real possibility. Regardless, these are not the kind of surprises you want.

Therefore, it is imperative to be as informed as possible about these creepy crawlers, so you’ll be prepared for an infestation. With the right information, you might even be able to prevent one.

What Exactly Are Pantry Pests?

Pantry pests are ones that truly live up to their namesake. They are pests that are commonly found in pantries and dry food cupboards. What makes the entire situation worse is just because you have these pests in your edibles, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve been negligent about keeping a clean kitchen. Sometimes these tricky and sneaky little critters can find their way into your food products by infiltrating them right from the supermarket or during delivery. Therefore, it becomes pertinent to learn to inspect your edibles properly and thoroughly before offloading them into the pantry.

While these creepy little invaders could easily be mistakenly ingested, you’ll be happy to learn that there have never been any reported cases where someone got sick from consuming one of these interlopers. The worst possible thing about them is they thought. Even though they don’t carry or transmits diseases, the thought of accidentally consuming one is enough to turn your stomach. In addition to this, they can add to your produce bill, as you’ll likely end up throwing away the items that have invaded. And this is not to even mention all the time, effort, and money you are going to spend trying to eliminate them.

Your best option might be trying to prevent them in the first place. As hard as this might seem, it is always possible to mitigate your risks. Learning this information is just the start.

Properly Identifying The Insects

Just because you have flying moths in the kitchen or around the pantry, it doesn’t necessarily mean you are dealing with pantry pests. Therefore, to properly identify an infestation, one must learn to identify these specific bugs. Take the Indian Meal Moth for example.

The Indian Meal Moth: This insect hails from the plodia interpunctella order and is a small reddish-brown moth with forewings. They usually have a coppery luster on the back half of the wings and a whitish-gray color on the front half. It is the larvae of this species that are responsible for all the pantry damage. With this in mind, these species are incredibly hard to get rid of, as they can crawl on your ceilings and spin cocoons in other rooms besides the kitchen and pantry. Given the chance, these bugs will migrate through the entire property.

The Saw-Toothed Grain Beetle: Hailing from the Oryzaphilus surinamensis order, these slender-bodied beetles only grow to be about a 1/10-inch in length but can be very imposing thanks to their six saw-like tooth projections located on each side of the thorax. Is it any wonder as to how this pest got its name? The sections below the head and abdomen are usually brown in color, which will also help with identification. Both the adults and the larvae consume dried food products, but this beetle would be considered more of a scavenger than the Indian Meal Moth.

The Cigarette Beetle: With a name like the Cigarette Beetle, you’d think these bugs liked tobacco products. Well, you would be right. However, they don’t like smoking the products. Instead, they can be commonly found munching on dried and cured tobacco. In addition to this, they’ll eat flours, cereals, candies, dried fruit, and much more. It won’t be uncommon to find them digging into your pet’s food or rodent bait either. They hail from the Lasioderma serricorne and are light brown with a body length of 1/8 inches. They have a hump-backed appearance that distinctively makes them stand out from the pack.

Learning to identify these pesky pantry pests is just the beginning. Once you have a confirmed infestation, you’ll have to devise a plan to get rid of them. This is where our pest management services come in. All you must do is pick up the phone, give us a call, and we’ll get us out to the property as quickly as possible.

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