Help! I've been invaded!

I knew! I had them a couple of years ago and I had to throw all my dry goods away as they spread very quickly!
Took me a while to get rid of them but the after washing the cupboards with bleach and even using a kitchen blow torch on the edges of the shelves, it was fly spray that killed them!
I regularly check now whenever I buy a new packet of flour/sugar etc.

Apparently putting some dried bay leaves in the flour while it's stored will prevent weevil infestation.

Haven't tried it myself though.

ooh ooh ooh

I once ate a satsuma which had maggots in it. It has put me off them for life. Bit silly, but there we are.

I have had these little horrors before. Chuck out the packets and spring clean the cupboard - job done!

Not in my case it wasn't!

I had this happen once, it was the eve of a three week holiday and I had to strip my kitchen, I dare not leave it until I returned. Every blessed item in the cupboard was infested, even the stock cubes. When I started lifting packets out the creatures were jumping from the shelf on to the worktop, I was slapping at them with kitchen towels soaked in bleach. I don't keep flour I just buy it as required so it must have been the bag of sugar bought the week before.
When I restocked my cupboard I put everything in airtight plastic boxes and I never had a problem after that.

Yes, it's happened to me too. I now keep all my flour packets in a huge sealed plastic box.

Uh oh! Off to check my cupboards now.

Ziplock bags for mine.

If they're like tiny white worms they're the larvae of the pantry moth. We get them every summer and I've had to put all dry goods in plastic containers. They like dried fruit and nuts too.

Yes, I've had them, just in the flour; these were little tiny black things moving around. Now I am meticulous about transferring flour, sugar etc into Tupperware containers with good seals once they are opened. Some of my Tupperware is nearly 50 years old but still good and fit for purpose.

In Australia everything has to be kept in the fridge or the freezer - including all the dried goods.

Many years ago we lived in Sudan. We had to make our own bread, and all our flour contained weevils. We kept it in the freezer most of the time. As our doctor (British) said, "It's all added protein". We got used to it after a while.

I put flour into ziplock bags too, although I've never had flour mites. My son did, though, in his spotless, beautifully organised store cupboard with everything arranged in serried ranks (senior NCO in the RAF!). He went to pieces (it was not long after he had lost his wife, who never panicked about anything) and I ended up driving sixty miles to reassure him that he was not going to be overwhelmed by these tiny creatures and carried off in his bed! We went through everything and put fresh dry goods in sealable containers and he was a happy bunny again. Kids eh?

KittyNanny weevils are OK as long as you can't hear or see them (Hear no weevil, see no.....).. Okay, I'm having a bad day.....

In my case they got into the sealed containers I transfer the flour into. Thankfully it has only happened once, but having to empty all the kitchen cupboard, throw away all the flour and everything else that was contaminated was a real faff.

When I lived in Singapore in the late 1960s we took them for granted and just sieved all our flour before using!

ooo, so glad I am not the only one! I rarely bake these days, but thought I would make dh some scones as he keeps buying them from supermarket. Yes, the flour was full of these tiny things. I hadn't used it for ages. So, I went through my dry goods and found so much way out of date! Lots thrown away, and now I buy flour in the small bags, as I would not get through a large one.
I noticed my herbs are a bit out of date - do you think that matters?

What would we have done in the olden days when flour came in large sacks and had to last for months?
It would have been no good having the vapours then
Fetch the smelling salts Daisy!

I have out-of-date herbs too, as they're dried I would think they would be OK but perhaps not as flavoursome. I did throw out a very large tub of mixed herbs recently, then bought another one which I will probably end up sprinkling on the manure heap if I don't use it all!

Greyduster

Out of date herbs are fine , as rosequartz says they may not be as potent after a while. Also don`t buy large packs of spices if you won`t use them very often, [the small supermarket jars/packets are best ] they lose their potency after a few weeks, chilli powder, coriander, cumin etc can become almost useless in curry as my hubby tells me....he`s a great curry cook being of Asian descent and is very fussy about his condiments !!!!

In the past I expect people just ate them cooked in whatever they made with the affected ingredients, as knittynannie did in Sudan.

I found them in lentils once. Just chucked them in the soup pot with the lentils.

'Them' being weevils, not stale herbs.

Oh, thank you Nicksmrs46, so you can't keep the spices for years then

While living in Far east 'll flours ect kept in sealed containers in fridge