Agreed. Gekos and skinks or whatever comes to hand should work. Spiders are great too. Sure, you may have to clean up after them but that isn’t too hard.
I have a batch of the daddy longlegs spiders inside, but they seem to be falling down on the job. Their webs are always empty, although they lurk around the ceiling and scare DH.
When we had them we called the Ag Extensions Service’s Food Preservation Hotline and got some good advice.
- Sealed containers, of course. And remember that the larvae are VERY good at chewing
- Dry ice in the grain/flour containers. The CO2 settles and kills moths in every stage of the life cycle
- Pheromone traps.
- A shop-vac with a long hose. The moths seek out high places.
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That’s actually on the list of features for my hypothetical dream house.
I threw out a perfectly good high capacity Microwave because I couldn’t identify these bugs. They look creepy.
Been there, done that. Several times. I guess it’s pretty common in Nor Cal.
Airtight containers, DE, traps and freezing all help. But they still wander in sometimes from outside or hitch a ride home from the store.
No bulk grains. Or if we do, it’s straight to the freezer.
Containers only, no bags. Flour bags and boxes of things like cornmeal go straight from the grocery bag into containers.
In addition to all that, a smattering of bay leaves on the shelves seems to help.
With all that done, I’ve only seen a few in the last couple years, but we have to stay vigilant. There were some inside the underside of our bread machine last week, so I went nuclear on that.
Hopefully it’s not an infestation beginning.
I hadn’t heard the dry ice approach before, will try that next time.
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I got a cat, he’s an avid bug (& mouse) hunter. He’s broken a few lamps in his frantic efforts to catch houseflies, but its a small price to pay for a very bug free house, and its damn entertaining to watch the acrobatics. Any crawly fluttery thing comes in here has a very short life expectancy. Just gotta remember to keep the pantry door open.
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