The Indian Meal Moth Massacre of 2013...

See this thing, this thing right here?

This nasty little creature caused quite the stir in our house.  

I would like to introduce you to the Indian Meal Moth.  

Yep, these things decided to move into out house, unannounced and without an invitation.  

Nasty.

I noticed these bugs flying around our laundry room a week or so ago.  They were contained to this room and we were not sure where they were coming from.  

We got rid of all of them or so we thought, and more appeared.  We quickly called an exterminator to come out, since we had no idea where or how these little bastards were getting into our laundry room.

Bird seed.  

Yep, you see, we were storing our bird seed bag on top of our cabinets in the laundry room.  Apparently, these things live in bird seed and can eat their way through the bag.  

Gross.

We got rid of the bird seed and the exterminator said it he would need to wait at least five days to spray to be sure all of the larvae had hatched.  Let's say that word again:  larvae.  I just shiver thinking about it.

Then, they were in our garage.  They clearly could not take the hint that they were not welcome.  

Oh it gets better.

Fast forward to Saturday, and I open our pantry to find, you guessed it, one of those little meal moth bastards.  

We both panic and instantly start emptying the pantry.  Ken had read that the little bastards like grain, rice, and flour.  Guess where I found where they decided to make their new home?  

An unopened bag of rice.  

Yep.  

It was nasty.  I will spare you a picture for fear of giving you nightmares.

We trashed everything that was not in a can or jar.

I am not going to lie, there were many casualties.

Too many to count actually.  So many baked goods were lost during the battle.

Chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, coconut, powdered sugar, the list goes on and on.  There is a silver lining, my cans of pumpkin managed to survive.  Hallelujah!

My orderly kitchen quickly looked like this:

Such a mess

Stuff was everywhere

Empty pantry cleaned and sprayed

We let the pantry sit overnight with traps for the meal moths.  I guess Ken opened pheromone capsules and placed them in the traps.  They flocked to the traps like crazy in the garage.  Horny bastards.  We have only caught one additional moth in the pantry.  I am hoping that they are gone.  

In order to be extra cautious, we went to Target and spent a significant amount of money on air tight storage containers for the pantry.  After seeing those bastards in the rice, I can go the rest of my life without seeing that again.  

Plus, the containers are you know, pretty.

New and improved pantry after dropping a few bones.

Indian Meal Moth Massacre 2013.  Never Forget.

May you all rest in peace.  Suckers.