The Indian meal moth, better known as the pantry moth, is an annoying pest that causes damages in thousands of dollars of food to family households every year. They are small and pale, usually no more than an inch from the top of the head to the end of the wing, These pests can get into your house when you open a door, and through cracks. It is fairly simple to get rid of them and stop having to throw away food that has been invaded by the pantry moth. Just a change in the way you store your food will keep them from ever wasting your money again. You will be rid of them in no time when you follow these simple steps.

Make a note of the places that are commonly infested with pantry moths. Do they get into your dog food? Your oatmeal? Your cereal? The places they inhabit will indicate where you have a problem. You should look at all your food to make sure that there are no infestations you do not know about. Be sure to look all over the house, even in bedrooms, where someone might have left an open bag of chips that could have been infested by moths and other pests. No food container is safe from these bugs if they have not been sealed off.

The next thing you need to do is throw away any food that has been touched by moths. You can not just throw out the parts of the food that has been touched, like the top bit, and keep the rest. You have to throw all of it away. Pantry moths can spread disease, so you can to eat food they have been on. It is unsafe and unsanitary. You will also need to clean out any food containers they have been in, too. The best thing you can do is to disinfect everything safely with bleach, and then rinse it well. Also, give your cabinets a good wipe down.

When you replace the food that has been infested with pantry moths, you need to make sure you prevent this from happening again. Always make sure that there is no way for the pantry moth to get into the food. Just having the food in a sealed plastic bag will not be enough. You need to get plastic or metal containers that you can actually seal- and get a lot of them, if you must. Cereal boxes are common places for moths to hide, because they can chew through them and most people do not seal them. So pour all of your cereal into containers of some kind.

As a last resort, if you still do not feel as though you are rid of pantry moths, and if you still see them flying around the house, you can purchase moth traps which will capture and kill them off. But, this is a last resort because traps and poisons can be a danger to children and pets. Besides, if they have no food to eat, they will not be a problem any more. So your best bet is to change the way you keep your food so they will not infest your food in the first place.