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Stored Product Pests Often Defy Simple Solutions
1 Aug, 2009 By: Mark Sheperdigian Pest Management ProfessionalOf all the chin-scratching obstacles we face, residential stored product pest problems can be among the worst.
Mark D. Sheperdigian
Most of them are a simple matter of producing from the pantry a 1965 box of cornmeal mix that is dripping with flour beetles. Sometimes they're fun, like when you pull out a post-Depression era box of raisins that has a platoon of indianmeal moth larvae fast-roping to safety as you present your prize to a horrified homeowner.
But every now and then you have beetles showing up on a counter by twos and threes and all your careful inspections come up empty. It's frustrating. You feel so forsaken by the skills that have made you what you are today. You glance toward the heavens in frustration and offer this humble supplication: "What's the deal?"
Before you give in to despair, consider this:
Don't forget to confirm the identification, even the most obvious stored product pests should be double-checked. Powder post beetles may look a lot like grain beetles and a webbing clothes moth has been mistaken for an indianmeal moth with disastrous results.
If the home has had problems with indianmeal moths before and reappear after a couple of months of no activity, you'd be well-served by rechecking the identification. They could be clothes moths destroying the full-length mink hanging in the closet or the sentimental trophy moose head hanging over the mantle. The longer you search for pantry pests, the deeper the damage that may be imputed to you in a lawsuit to come. It wouldn't be the first time.
A note on indianmeal moths: Don't use pheromone traps in a house. If you must, use the light-dose traps designed for small area trapping. The pheromones used for the moths are so efficient, they'll drag male moths in from all over the neighborhood. It's common for such "infestations" to persist as long as the pheromone trap is in the home. Remove it and see if it doesn't solve the problem.
Characterize the population to determine why the pest is there. Is it dozens of pests that have showed up all of a sudden? This may indicate a brood of insects laid by a single female several months ago. If you get a few individuals sporadically, it indicates the population may be subsisting on poor quality food or living on small quantities of spillage. It may also indicate a large population at a remote location which means it's time to check the basement or the attic.
Two Important Questions
Have you ever had pets? If the dog is snarling from its crate in the corner, you can forego this question. Have you ever had mice?
Contrary to popular opinion, getting a cat or a dog is not a solution to a chronic mouse problem. Getting a dog means you are about to provide the mice with nature's most perfect food: dog chow.
It's not done maliciously, but the nature of mice is to horde the food in a quiet place for consumption later. It could be in a wall void. It could be in the false bottom of a cabinet. Or it could be in a drawer of tax records mice have dutifully shredded into nesting material somewhere in the basement.
Blissfully unaware of their own lack of longevity, mice optimistically horde pounds and pounds of dog food against some future economic downturn fueled by an ill-advised stimulus package. In fact, the mouse may not survive the year, but four years and two tenants later, treasure-hunting drugstore beetles find the mother lode.
Between macaroni based refrigerator art, long forgotten D-con and out-of-date potpourri, you can grow a veritable zoo of stored product pests. You may have to find them without the homeowner's help. Stay calm and methodical, and you'll get there.
You can reach Sheperdigian, vice president of technical services for Rose Pest Solutions in Troy, Mich., at sheperdigian@earthlink.net.
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