If you follow me on Facebook, you may have seen me rant about dealing with pantry moths.  Some folks never have had to deal with these pests, but for whatever reason, they have been persistent boogers in our home. The problem is that they have not confined themselves to just the pantry but had been making their presence known throughout the kitchen and dining room. And just when we thought we had them under control, they came back again. So we did what we have done in the past; a total attack on them. Armed with my trusty vacuum, a putty knife, hot water and dish soap, an arsenal of cleaning rags, and a call to our bug man, we commenced our battle (again).

Moths seem to especially love to make their nests at the edges of the wall where the wallpaper border meets the ceiling. So we went around with the vacuum and the putty knife, removing the nests. We also sucked up any grown moths that decided to make themselves at home in the crevices of our popcorn ceiling. We made sure that we emptied the vacuum outside so as not give any of them a chance to escape. We took a few larvae and moths prisoner for our bug man so that they could confirm what type of moth we were dealing with.  (Little homeschool science side note-from our samples we learned that even enclosed in a sealed plastic bag, not only will larvae hatch but the adult moths lived until we threw them away after the bug man came three days after they were captured.)

After we finished with the walls and ceilings, I moved my troops into the pantry. I removed everything from the shelves and floor and we began to wipe down everything with hot soap and water. Not only did I wash the shelves, walls, and ceiling but also all of the containers and cans. As I was cleaning, my daughter helped me take inventory of what we had in there, recording everything on a spreadsheet and making note of the expiration dates.  Because moths seem to like cardboard boxes and especially grains of all kinds, we took everything out of their boxes and put them into plastic containers (except for the cartons of broth). Even with my 25 plus years of accumulated Tupperware I had to make a trip to the Dollar Store to get more of the smaller sizes that I needed and they were at the right price. When I put everything back on the shelves I made sure that the earliest expiration dates where in the front. While it took about 5 hours to complete the project, I am very pleased with the outcome and hope that we will be done with pantry moths for good this time.