Nothing sours an appetite like finding bugs in your kitchen! The combination of dark corners in cabinets and pantries with an ample food supply makes kitchens the ideal place for creepy crawly pests to call home.
While you can find a wide variety of pests in your kitchen — from rodents to ants to cockroaches — some of the most common pantry pests are not as well-known. Let’s take a peek at some of Kansas City’s most infamous stored product pests.
What are Stored Product Pests?
Stored product pests — also known as “pantry pests” — are species of pests including beetles, moths, and mites that frequently infest stored food products like whole grains and processed foods. These pests can contaminate food, damage books and other paper products, and even cause home damage. If stored product pests contaminate food, it can spoil much faster and lead to food-borne illnesses.
Common Stored Pests in Kansas City
There are several varieties of stored product pests that can be found in Kansas City homes, but Indian meal moths, cigarette beetles, and confused flour beetles are the most common. Here’s what you need to know about these three pantry pests and how to identify them:
Indian Meal Moths
Indian meal moths are small, beige, or copper-colored moths that prefer to hide in dark pantries where food is stored. Being nocturnal by nature, they can often be found motionless on the walls or ceilings of your kitchen or pantry during the day.
Adult Indian meal moths will not eat your food, but their larvae can and will! The small pink or cream worm-like larvae will quickly contaminate any food source they get into, leaving behind fecal pellets, shed skins, eggshells, and silk webbing wherever they go.
Cigarette Beetles
Aptly named for their attraction to cigarettes and other tobacco products, cigarette beetles’ penchant for consumption goes beyond their tobacco habit! Cigarette beetles may feed on all manner of dried goods and pantry products like grain, rice, spices, ginger, raisins, pepper, and dried florals.
Cigarette beetles are small, oval-shaped brown beetles with serrated antennae that are the same thickness from base to tip and smooth wings. Adult cigarette beetles only live about a month but can still lay as many as 100 eggs on food products in that time.
Confused Flour Beetles
Don’t let their name fool you — confused flour beetles are not “confused” when finding flour or meal to inhabit! These stored product pests are often mistaken for red flour beetles, hence the name. But while they may be different pests, their potential for damage is the same. Both are pantry pests that can contaminate your food! The main difference is that confused flour beetles can’t fly like their red flour cousins.
Confused flour beetles frequent granaries, mills, and warehouses where grain products are stored — so stay vigilant, commercial business owners! These beetles can lay as many as 450 eggs on the broken grain kernels or finely ground grains they like to call home, which can lead to infestations in multiple households if the problem starts at a food storage facility.
How to Prevent Stored Product Pests
To prevent stored product pests from moving into your pantry, the best thing you can do is keep your kitchen clean and your food products stored in airtight containers. When you bring grains, cereals, and other pantry goods home from the grocery store, transfer them from the cardboard boxes and paper bags into sealed glass or plastic containers that pests can’t chew their way through to get to the food. Beyond this simple step, try to keep all areas of your kitchen neat and tidy, sweeping and wiping up any food spills and crumbs.
How to Get Rid of Stored Product Pests
If you discover stored product pests in your kitchen or pantry, here’s how to get rid of them in two easy steps:
1. Throw Away Spoiled Food Products
Get rid of any food products that you know have been contaminated by the pantry pest. It can be difficult to identify every spot where a stored product pest is hiding out, so keep in mind there are more effective methods of elimination. This is simply an essential step in keeping your kitchen clean and removing soiled goods from your home before someone ingests them.
2. Contact Advantage Termite & Pest Control
Professional pest control is the only way to safely and effectively deal with stored product pests. At Advantage Termite and Pest Control, we use Integrated Pest Management (IPM) methods to eliminate existing pest problems while treating your home to prevent future infestations.
If you suspect foul play in your pantry, contact Advantage Termite and Pest Control to keep your food and family safe. Call us at first sight — we do it right!
