Well we did a major unexpected purge the past 2 days and have more to do tonight and tomorrow. I am so sick over this ... UGH. Well We learned a very hard, tiring and time consuming lesson .. Never store pet food in the garage! We used to buy cat food and dog biscuits in bulk, full up the container in the house and store the rest in plastic totes in the garage .. Yeah no more. Unknown to us until it was too late we had an infestation of indianmeal moths in the garage and they got into the extra cat food in and the box of dog biscuits. There were larva worms all over the place. We spent most of Sunday killing what we could see on the floor, walls and ceiling .. the surge in warm humid temps lately helped eggs hatch much more quickly. Spent all of last evening into the night throwing out a lot of stuff including all my disposable foil pans, packs of holiday themed napkins .. yup those little suckers were inside the unopened packs of napkins, my boxes of trash bags, freezer/storage bags, foil etc. They even infested my ice creamer maker ... into the trash bags and out to the curb they went. 4 black yard bags full so far and I am sure I will add another 1 to 2 bags tonight,. I have a couple rubber maid storage cabinets and a huge free standing metal shelving unit that I kept all these on in the garage. Everything else in and on those cabinets/shelves got washed including the cabinets and shelves. I also made a spray of water, vinegar and peppermint oil and sprayed everything down.
We still the other half of the garage that was away from where the pet food was stored to check tonight. We did spot check those areas last night but didn't see anything but I plan on dragging the rest out of the garage to really check them tonight. Thank fully the only food stored in the garage were canned goods and jars. Had the kids wiped them down last night but you better believe I will be out there daily .. well more like 4 times a day to check for any more of those little suckers.
SO I need to start restocking what I had to throw out and find other places in the house to store them especially the paper goods, foil, and the storage/freezer bags. I have a few ideas of where to store them but that means I need to redo half my kitchen/pantry cabinets.
Thankfully this morning when I checked the garage I did not see any moths or larva anyplace. I guess the bright side is after this we will have a very clean garage.
We still the other half of the garage that was away from where the pet food was stored to check tonight. We did spot check those areas last night but didn't see anything but I plan on dragging the rest out of the garage to really check them tonight. Thank fully the only food stored in the garage were canned goods and jars. Had the kids wiped them down last night but you better believe I will be out there daily .. well more like 4 times a day to check for any more of those little suckers.
SO I need to start restocking what I had to throw out and find other places in the house to store them especially the paper goods, foil, and the storage/freezer bags. I have a few ideas of where to store them but that means I need to redo half my kitchen/pantry cabinets.
Thankfully this morning when I checked the garage I did not see any moths or larva anyplace. I guess the bright side is after this we will have a very clean garage.