Help! I've been invaded!

After cleaning out that particular cupboard, which I keep for all baking, plus cake tins Etc. I decided to clean out the pantry, wipe down all the shelves and get rid of any way out of date things.Oh heck! Lots. I must stop stockpiling things. Then I moved onto the fridge, and cleaned that out too, and removed a couple of iffy items. Feel quite pleased it's all done now.

I didn't think they existed anymore, I thought someone had found a way to get rid of them! I must have been very lucky.

Growing up in a grocer's family during the '50's I've always thought that weevils were just a fact of life. They sometimes get caught in the base flaps of cardboard boxes in the cupboard but don't get into the goods inside. I always check before using any dried goods. Bit like you'd check if milk's off, fruit and veg are maggot free or eggs are ok before you use them.

Another one here who was in Singapore '66 to '68. I didn't mind any creepy crawlies except the enormous 'Bombay runners'! Never had weevils in the flour though, as far as I can recall!

These things are a fact of life in our house. DH took our larder cupboard apart once and found they were all living in the chipboard shelves - the side edges of the shelves aren't sealed like the front and back, so he took all the shelves in the garage, emptied a whole can of fly spray into all edges, then the next day, after cleaning them, he painted the edges with gloss paint to seal them. I always keep all my packs of dried goods in either kliplock bags or strong polythene bags with freezer bag clips, which keeps everything bug free. But I find them in my books too. And I'm not going to put them in polythene bags
I did keep flour in tupperware at one time, but I still found weevils in there. The fact is, the eggs are in the flour when it's bought and the only way to stop the bugs is to keep flour in the freezer for a few days. This only kills the eggs and stops them hatching, though - the eggs are still in the flour

I've just realised mine weren't weevils, but I have seen those.
We get lots of mice from the surrounding fields and last week had to kill a large rodent, not a rat, don't know yet what it was. Horrible!
Jackiekeil - we were in Singapore in the late 60s - '66 to '68. I remember the ants and cockroaches.

Oh I'm going to have to look now. Ugh.

Well, I did inspect my cupboards, found weevils in three different bags of flour and in two different sugars, and some just walking about happily along the shelves! eeek. put them all out in the rubbish, washed all the cake tins etc, and then washed the shelves in a weak bleach solution.Took a while, but thanks Gransnet, for making me go and check.I hadn't used them for a while, so now will be buying good quality plastic storage and small amounts of flour and sugar for baking.

OMG I learn something every day. I have never heard of these little blighters. I had better inspect my cupboards.

We had this years ago. Came home from a holiday to find that a packet of dry baby food (we used to reconstitute it with water), had weevils and contaminated the whole cupboard. We called the council and they sent out someone to fumigate. What bothers me is that the eggs must be in there to begin with!

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

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

'Them' being weevils, not stale herbs.

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.

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 !!!!

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

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?

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

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.

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.....

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?

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.

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

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.

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.