I recently had to clean out my pantry. Here's all the stuff I moved out of the pantry and into the kitchen. Oh what a mess I had. The reason this was necessary shocked me. CANDLEFLIES. They are little moth looking things. I thought these things were coming in from outside and that they were the kind drawn to light - especially those that fly around florescent lights. I have a florescent light in my kitchen and one in the pantry. They seemed to prefer my pantry...
I got my flying insect spray and sprayed them several times throughout the week. They always came back. I won't go into the gory details of how they get there, but I googled "camel flies" which I thought I had heard them called. Turns out they are candle flies. That's when I realized the pantry had to be emptied. Anything related to grain was discarded along with chips, cardboard and everything else that was not in a can or air-tight container.
The picture above shows a few items remaining, but they were also removed. The shelves, walls, ceilings, door and floor were all washed with Clorox disinfecting spray - TWICE. I had become paranoid and I was determined not to put anything back in there until I was comfortable doing so. Every canned good I kept, all of my cookware - ANYTHING put back in there was washed with Clorox and or Lysol. When that was done, this is what was was allowed back in the pantry.
Needless to say, while putting things back in there, I decided to reorganize. That's when I had an idea about where to put my cookware. In the past it was put on the top shelf and not in an organized fashion. My brainstorm resulted in this:
The things that wouldn't fit on the wall were the only things that are stored on the shelf. I was rather proud of myself!
I can assure you that I check my pantry several times throughout the day just to be sure I don't see one of those pesky candle flies. I haven't, but I'm still paranoid. Everything I purchase that comes in a box is now stored in air-tight containers and the box is discarded. For the record, I found out that ziplock bags are not air-tight.
I hesitated posting about this but decided if it kept even one person from having to go through the aggravation, gagging and throwing away several hundred dollars worth of pantry items, it would be worth the embarrassment. Then, I decided I had no reason to be embarrassed because my house is kept clean and the "devils" came in from things I had purchased.
Hoping you find no candle flies anywhere near your home!
