For years, a woman wondered about food moths in her apartment. Now she wants to have found the cause in a food.
Have you ever had food moths in your house? They really are a disgusting nuisance. The small, whitish larvae crawl up the walls and eat their way through food. Sometimes their webs get stuck in packaging and corners of the room – and you just can’t get rid of them.
Even a fanatic about cleanliness can get a moth infestation in the house, because the little beasts are often brought in through food, dry animal feed or packaging material that has already been infested with eggs or larvae. This is exactly what happened to a woman and she reports on Facebook from their discovery.
The woman posted several photos of a bag of organic rice. You can see small black dots, countless white balls and small moths. She writes, “I’ve spent years trying to understand where food moths come from.” She turns the whole kitchen upside down when cleaning and yet the moths keep coming back. Now she has finally found the answer.
But the woman also writes that she probably didn’t open the bag of rice (an organic private label from Rewe) in time. In addition, it remains completely unclear whether the moths escaped from the packaging or whether there was an infestation by another contaminant in the past.
Rewe immediately apologized and wrote: “Oh dear, of course that shouldn’t happen under any circumstances and it doesn’t meet our high quality standards at all. Please send us your e-mail address and a picture of the batch number in a PM (located next to the BBD ) so that we can forward it directly to our responsible colleagues.”
300 eggs per female moth
Apparently, the gentle treatment given to organic food during production makes it easier for house moths to penetrate our pantries. In addition, the eggs of the moth are almost invisible to the customer in products such as flour, rice or spices.
Once the moths have arrived at our home, they begin to reproduce. In the ten to 14 days of life, a female moth lays up to 300 eggs in narrow cracks and joints. Their development period is between 30 and 75 days. Up to four generations of moths can develop throughout the year.
Consumption of infested products can lead to allergies, skin diseases or gastrointestinal disorders. Attention allergy sufferers: fungi and mites can colonize food contaminated with moth droppings. It is best to get rid of the critters as soon as possible. But how?
How to get rid of house moths
The Federal Environment Agency (UBA) warns against the use of biocides, which can pose a health hazard, and recommends the following types of moth control:
- Sticky pheromone traps: The traps (with female sexual attractants) attract the males who are ready to mate. This limits the reproduction of the moths. However, the traps alone are not enough to safely eliminate the infestation.
- Thorough cleaning of the infested cupboards with vinegar water. Heat cracks and other hard-to-reach places with a hair dryer.
- Biological control with the natural enemies, the parasitic wasps (trichograms), which parasitize the moth eggs and thus destroy them. As soon as there are no more moth eggs, the wasps disappear too. Check it out at your drugstore. Cardboard cards containing the parasitic wasps are available there. They are placed in all infested supply closets. After about nine weeks, the food moths are gone.
- Chemical measures: The use of insecticides should be avoided. A combination of preventive and non-chemical measures is usually sufficient.