Bugs in your Plano pantry generally means an infestation of pantry pests is well underway. It is essential to understand the pests that are invading your pantry so you can target your pantry pest traps and benefit from effective pantry pest control.
Common Pantry Pests
Several different types of pests fall under the general category of pantry pests. It is important to be aware of these differences to more efficiently set a pantry pest trap or consult a professional for pantry pest control.
Common pantry pests in the Plano area include:
- Cigarette Beetles: Round and brown in color, cigarette beetles gain their name from a love of stored tobacco products and infest most pantry staple items.
- Indian Meal Moths: These moths are also often referred to as pantry moths and inhabit stored flours, nuts, grains, and pasta.
- Saw-Toothed Beetles: Flat with a small body, saw-toothed beetles range in color from light brown to yellow and inhabit most pantry staples.
- Flour Beetles: You can encounter two varieties of flour beetles in your home, the confused flour beetle and the red flour beetle, though both have flat, oval bodies and reddish coloration.
- Merchant Grain Beetles: The merchant grain beetle ranges in color from light to dark brown and has a narrow oval-shaped body. It prefers to live in stored cookies, cereals, and chocolates.
Most pantry pest infestations will start with the adult pest laying their eggs in a particular stored product; this product serves as food for larvae growing. Infestations of pantry pests will often contain all life cycle stages, which makes it important to eliminate any pantry pests you have entirely, or the infestation will come back at some point.
Pantry Pest Prevention Tips
The best pantry pest repellant is to prevent this pest proactively. The following tips can help you keep pantry pests away from your home and ensure your food storage areas stay safe:
- Before purchasing any stored food products, you should carefully examine the sides and corners of the packaging. Any holes or rips in the cardboard or wrapper of the item may indicate that pantry pests have already invaded it. With clear packaging, you should also look for signs of pantry pests in the product or clumps of the item sticking together, as this is an indicator of pantry pest eggs.
- After you purchase stored food items, you may want to consider transferring them to plastic, airtight containers. You can empty the product into the container or place the sealed package into a container. Either way, this will stop pantry pests from invading the food product, keeping it safe.
- A great way to keep pantry pests out of your home is to check window and door screens for any gaps or breakage. Replace screens if they are broken, update weather stripping, and ensure that your exterior windows and doors stay closed as often as possible.
How To Get Rid Of Pantry Pest Infestations
If you want to know how to get rid of pantry pest infestations, you should be contacting Adams Exterminating Company. The experts can give you more prevention advice or effective help for getting rid of an ongoing infestation, so your pantry can be completely free of any pests and your stored food safe.