Cleanliness is a good start. We all get in a hurry and, sometimes, leave a counter with crumbs– but that isn’t the best practice. Clean up counters and table-tops after meals and snacks. Sweep the kitchen floor, as well. Don’t give them things to feed on.

• They threw out expired food.
• Checked the current food for freshness. Stale? It went in the trash, too.
• Washed the cupboards: shelves, sides, ceilings. Yep. ALL of it.
• Put down shelf paper. (What’s that? Shelf paper is literally paper that lays on the shelf and looks pretty. But it’s functional too. It can be thrown away with the next cleaning or if there is a spill.)
• Replaced the old with new food, in air-tight containers.

Yep. They had less moths in those days. Now we know why.

Another tip: your kitchen cupboards, themselves, may be making it all-too-easy for the moths to stay. If the cupboards are not flush to the wall, or do not go up to the ceiling, then there are a lot of hiding places that you’ll never get at no matter how well you clean.

First: get busy and do the “spring or fall cleaning” routine. Forget waiting for the right time of year. Do it now. Empty the cupboards and toss all the infested food out. Play it safe. Don’t try to hang onto anything questionable. You’ll get more food.

Unless it’s canned soup or tuna, most things will probably have to go. Cereal, mashed potatoes, pancake mix, rice, pasta, packaged mixes like cake mix, tea bags…say “goodbye” to it.

Desperate, having been under siege for well over a month, I stopped trying home remedies and began to search the internet. The chats and forums all were saying that moth traps were the only thing that really works.

So, I found a highly recommended brand–  Catchmaster –and called the local home improvement store. They did not have any in stock. Though I didn’t really want to have to wait any longer, I knew that Amazon shipped quickly. I placed my order for two packs and kept on squirting the varmints out of the air with glass cleaner until my order arrived.   LOL

The traps are easy to assemble and non-toxic. Small little tents. I was skeptical that just one trap could do much but I was utterly amazed to watch it work. Literally 30 seconds after I had the trap assembled, the first moth flew into it and got stuck. Then two more arrived. Whoosh. They were gone, caught in its proverbial jaws.