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I setup those little foldup bug traps and take it in to the local hardware/landscape store.
In my area I have those little humidity beetles that die when they crawl out of the old woodwork. I had never seen them before in other areas.
One log home I looked at to rent had several HUNDRED of them at the doors every morning. all dead. They were more of an indicator of how badly built the base of the home was!!! Other than that, good pet turtle food if you don't use chemicals!
Carpenter ants are big. You might see one in your house occasionally, but that's because it wandered in by mistake. They don't live inside houses, unless there are rotting logs in the living room.
Carpenter ants do move indoors and can "permanently" set up shop in appropriate (maybe damp) wood infrastructure such as joists, etc. I once lived in an apartment where (probably after 20 years) their galleries weakened the joists so much that they had to add supports. (no termites in that area). I've never seen winged carpenter ants though.
What she is describing is probably something else. Check for flour "goobies" (weevils?) (dig into that bag of flour and look carefully) and look in any other container that is not sealed, especially flour, mixes with flour, cereals and stuff. Frankly, I'd toss it all and start over. Weevils are not weevils forever. They eventually pupate and break out as winged adults. I bet you have an infested box of something in those cupboards
If you don't find an infested box/bag of something, then remove any foodstuffs that are not "hermetically" sealed. Dust the dry cupboards and any runways with boric acid and see if that eliminates them. That will eliminate most all ants and cockroaches too, btw. A going over with Cyper WP (a dry dust with permethrin - quite safe, just don't eat it) will kill anything that crawls. A week or two should eradicate anything and since they're crawling around, you don't have to put it everywhere. "Maintenance" is unlikely to solve your problem. Don't fall prey to depending on that to solve this.
Last edited by TwinbrookNine; 02-01-2018 at 01:13 PM..
Thanks for more info! You've convinced me that it probably is some kind of pantry bugs. BTW, if you guys saw my last post, I said how I hopefully don't have to tell maintenance to handle it.
I'm a little ticked off at my fiance' right now, so I can't wait till he gets home from work today! So I had everything still laid out last night because I wanted to see if any bugs came back PLUS I wanted to really wipe off the dried non-toxic bug spray that I had sprayed yesterday before putting the food back in. He's so irked by clutter that without asking me, he had put everything back on the shelves &
I also discovered he threw away a couple of glass jars that my mom gave me.
I had to empty out a shelf again, so his "hard work" putting it all back didn't do any good because I saw a few more bugs back on the shelves AGAIN. Grrrrr.
It seems these bugs have been around for a while & I'm just now noticing it lately because on the shelving UNDER the liner were a LOT of dead bugs & their casings & some live ones crawling. (I don't go in my cupboard that much).
(BTW, I don't have flour in my pantry. I don't use it.)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Zoisite
But did you inspect the contents inside the packages? Did you look for tiny pinpoint sized entry and exit holes in the packages made of cardboard, light plastic or tin foil? In all likelihood your dry goods is where the bugs are coming from and if your packaged dry goods are infested you will need to get rid of those groceries. Unless of course you want to eat bugs and egg casings and feces in your food.
99% of insect pests that infest a pantry are insects that a grocery shopper brings home in some dry good that they just purchased at the store. The insects / larvae / eggs get brought home in a single box of cookies or a package of dry pasta or dry soup mix or a bag of flour or cornmeal or whatever. Then hey presto! a couple of weeks later the bugs have multiplied and chewed their way into all the other dry packages on your shelves and are laying eggs in them and eating your dry foods. A few more weeks go by and your entire pantry and all the dry goods are infested with them.
Cleaning and disinfecting the cupboards and shelves is a necessary start but you MUST also thoroughly inspect the contents of all of the dry goods too to find which packages have the insects and eggs in them and then get rid of them. It's the only way to ensure that you've completely eradicated the infestation.
From what you're describing I think you have little pantry beetles but whatever they are you probably brought them home yourself from a grocery store, so they aren't your landlord's fault or his responsibility.
Thanks for this good info! No, didn't inspect any boxed food, but I threw out a few boxes yesterday of boxed cornbread stuffing & a couple other things & I'll probably throw out several more today (Hamburger Helper, pasta salad, boxes, etc.).
Quote:
Originally Posted by TwinbrookNine
...What she is describing is probably something else. Check for flour "goobies" (weevils?) (dig into that bag of flour and look carefully) and look in any other container that is not sealed, especially flour, mixes with flour, cereals and stuff. Frankly, I'd toss it all and start over. Weevils are not weevils forever. They eventually pupate and break out as winged adults. I bet you have an infested box of something in those cupboards
If you don't find an infested box/bag of something, then remove any foodstuffs that are not "hermetically" sealed. Dust the dry cupboards and any runways with boric acid and see if that eliminates them. That will eliminate most all ants and cockroaches too, btw. A going over with Cyper WP (a dry dust with permethrin - quite safe, just don't eat it) will kill anything that crawls. A week or two should eradicate anything and since they're crawling around, you don't have to put it everywhere. "Maintenance" is unlikely to solve your problem. Don't fall prey to depending on that to solve this.
Thanks for the good info! Those 2 substances you stated that I bolded above, WHERE do you get them & will they affect my breathing at all in a negative way? I have a respiratory issue (allergic asthma) & I don't want anything to set it off.
Last edited by Forever Blue; 02-01-2018 at 04:16 PM..
Also check your spices! I had an infestation of some sort of pantry beetle that specifically invades spices, and had to throw a lot of mine away. They had also strayed into the other pantry and were in a few dry goods in that as well, like a box of powdered mashed potatoes.
Once I got rid of the spices and wiped everything down, they did go away. There were a few glass jar spices I wanted to keep, so I put those jars into a ziplock for about a month, and when I didn't see any beetles inside the ziplock, I figured it was safe to keep those.
We had pantry beetles in our cupboards and after cleaning everything out and putting all the dry items in containers, we still had the odd culprit emerge.
I read about putting bay leaves in the cupboard. Yeah, right, I thought. Well, we did just that and haven't seen one since. There were some dead ones around the bay leaves themselves.
I don't normally subscribe to half-@zz-sounding remedies but we have a bay leaf bush in our yard and I thought, well, what the heck. Ta-da!
Getting and posting a picture would make all the difference in getting an ID. Maybe someone else can get a picture for you? Maybe shine some light on it when you take a picture, to help the camera/phone? Etc.
There are many possibilities, but we could go on and on with what it isn't. A picture is worth a thousand words.
Last edited by Thoreau424; 02-01-2018 at 07:37 PM..
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So I had everything still laid out last night because I wanted to see if any bugs came back PLUS I wanted to really wipe off the dried non-toxic bug spray that I had sprayed yesterday before putting the food back in. He's so irked by clutter that without asking me, he had put everything back on the shelves &
