Pantry Pests Exterminator
Picture the scene. Your eyes are barely open as you pour milk into the cereal bowl. In your half groggy state, you see things moving around. Your rational brain tells you that it can’t be, that you just opened a new box. As you wipe the morning out of your eyes, you realize that you are not seeing things. A look into the box, and it is teeming with bugs. As you go through the pantry, you find box after box of infested products and wasted dollars. After a tedious clean-up, you wonder how this could happen. The truth is, you can keep your home spotless and have a scheduled pest control plan in place, but you can’t control bringing the pests in from the supermarket. The list of insects that can make their way inside your home is a long one.
Even if you inspect every package at the store and find them pest-free, you may still be bringing them in. Some species can lay eggs as far back in the production process as the farm. The eggs can lay dormant until the conditions are right for hatching. This is one reason that you can go from not seeing one bug to a full-on infestation overnight. This issue is so prevalent that food scientist Skye Blackburn suggests that we eat an average of a half-pound of these bugs yearly. The good news is they rarely are harmful for us to ingest. Contaminated food may be susceptible to fungal growth, which in turn can cause some stomach sickness.
Weevils top the list of home pantry invaders. These critters feed on whole grains and are commonly found in corn, rice, and pasta. Unfortunately, eating isn’t all they do; they can lay eggs as well. Should you find an infested box or bag in your pantry, all may not be lost. After careful inspection, items with no bugs can be placed in a freezer for four days to kill the eggs and larvae.
Another hitchhiker making its way into your pantry is the Indian Meal Moth. Once in, they are very difficult to get rid of. They can lay as many as 300 eggs, which hatch in just a few days. Their larvae can chew through plastic and cardboard and spread quickly, and they are not seasonal. They can thrive as long the food source remains.
It is not only our food that is at risk. Pet foods bought in bulk that sit for a while in a basement or out of the way place are an open invitation for these pests. In moist conditions, grain mites can overrun an area. Dry foods are not the only target. Drugstore beetles also feast on beans, spices, dried fruits and vegetables, and tobacco. Some other common insects you may be surprised to find in your closet are the saw-toothed grain, spider, and confused flour beetles, and the yellow mealworm.
If you’ve found that the kids or spouse are not the only ones raiding the pantry,
contact New Day Pest Control. We can take care of the problem at hand and put a plan in place to keep it away. In Passaic, Essex, Hudson, and Bergen County, we are the leading experts for the bugs you can see and even those you can’t.
