Meal Moths: A bird owners bane

We have problems with meal moths off and on during the spring and summer months. Meal moths are small tan-yellow insects that are incredibly difficult to get rid of should you find yourself with even a small infestation. They’re especially hard to avoid if you live in a semi wooded to wooded area or own bird feeders/pet birds. While they don’t pose any direct harm to humans or pets they absolutely love to eat starch heavy substances in your kitchen and leave you with a bunch of small, disgusting maggots.

If you don’t appreciate the little freeloaders, read on.

Meal Moths are attracted to, feed on and lay their eggs inside a wide range of food products that you may have in your home. You can be the cleanest neat freak on your block and leave no dirty dish unwashed and still have manage to get an infestation. The problem is, they hitch a ride in many types of commercially available birdseed, hamster food and some of the less diligent providers of human consumption intended grain. And once you have one you likely have a hundred others hiding in the nooks and crannies of your home. Truth be told it can take a long time to de-moth your home completely, but here are some tips for making it an easier process.

Make use of your trashcan
Set aside a day off and dig through your cabinets. Throw away anything that isn’t fully sealed in an air tight bag. Cellophane packaging is not air tight. Neither are those boxes you keep your flavored rice in. A list of easily infested items is as follows:

• Raisin boxes
• Open cereal and cracker boxes
• Any type of rice
• Dog/Cat/Ferret kibble and treats
• Cookies (Sadly your cookie jar may have to be ornamental for sometime)
• Birdseed (domestic and wild)
• Hamster food
• Hard taco/tostada shells (the cellophane they are wrapped in is not air tight. Since soft taco and gordita shells are packaged in air tight foil to prevent drying out, those are okay.)
• Candy (Chocolate sprinkles, miniature candy bars, full sized candy bars, etc.)
• Bread crumbs / stuffing mix (Most come in cardboard tubes that are easily breached once the foil seal has been opened.)
• Some spices (Paprika, basil, parsley, oregano can all be infested, even with the caps securely fastened! Fortunately plain old salt and pepper seems to be okay.)

You can recognize an infestation right away. As the maggots hatch into moths they produce a sticky web that can be easily seen if looked for. The maggots are a little hard to see (especially in white rice) unless you look for their darker colored heads. Tie the garbage bag securely and bring it to the dump.

Clean those cabinets and cobwebs
Wet a paper towel and go through your cabinets removing all cob webs and loose bits. Don’t forget to clean out every area that you regularly keep food in. The cabinet, the pantry, the basement. It only takes one moth to start the cycle all over again and that’ll make all your earlier hard work worth nothing.

Move that birdseed/pet food!
Store all of your birdseed and pet food in the garage if possible. If you live in colder regions this has the added benefit of freezing the little buggers. The cold stops meal moths in their tracks. Do NOT store seed/pet food in the shed. This will attract wild animals that you probably don’t want hanging out next to your camping gear and toolbox.

Deploy fly catchers
Hang cylindrical sticky fly catchers around your home in areas inaccessible to pets (an article on that later!) This will catch any of the mature moths that may be flying around your home. Remove them after one week.

Go shopping
While you’re out buying new biscuits and cereal invest in some heavy duty, air tight canisters. Look for a large plastic ring on the lid. Diligently store all of your vulnerable food stuffs in these canisters immediately after shopping. It’s so easy to put it off until later in the day and forget about a single box of rice. We like to store all of our flavored rices (Rice-a-roni, etc) in small ziptop bags inside of air tight canisters to keep everything organized.

Do a final sweep
Take a walk around your home with a wash cloth. Look in nooks and crannies around your home, you’ll find ready to hatch moths everywhere. In the corners of picture frames, boxes, books, interior of lamp shades. Everywhere. You don’t need to remove them all, but removing most of them is a good idea.

After all of that it’s just a matter of keeping a look out. They’re more likely to come back to haunt you in the spring and summer months, but that doesn’t mean you should let your guard down in the fall and winter.