Has anybody else been plauged, by these little devils? It is not something, normally talked about, we have never seen them before. But, they have caused us to discard all of our dry goods, twice this fall; incuding our dried peppers, tomatoes, pecans, peanuts, pasta, rice and anything else in the pantry. They seem to go through airtight seals, and they even got my dried habaneros. We cleaned cabinets once, thought we wre done, wrong the bastards are back Len
damn, I am going to miss our dired tomatoes and peppers
Those things are a real pain, aren't they? We had them, or something similar, a couple of years ago. It took us a couple of trys to get them all gone. Store the dry things in the freezer if you have room.
There is a pheremone trap that helped me eliminate them in my home. Google "pantry pest trap" for sources/info.
If you have small children in the house (or very messy large children and adults) you might have isolated areas of infestation that you miss when cleaning the cabinets. A few oyster crackers spilled behind the bed, or in the chair in the spare room, etc.
The usual source of reinfection (once you eliminate them from your house) is flour (especially whole grain) or birdseed. Always bag them in plastic and freeze them for several days to kill any moths. I usually store whole grain flours in the freezer anyway to stop them going rancid.
You betcha. Even sealing up everything doesn't seem to eliminate them. Some determined types (the dreaded and inexpertly identified 'chile moth') seem to be able to bore through ziploc bags, or be included in original packaging. Seal everything in glass jars or heavy-duty plastic containers. Eat fast! That is, don't expect moth-attractive things are going to last indefinitely. Freezing is a help. Wretched critters!
I had them briefly, and very badly, about ten years ago, never did discover when they came, it was like an explosion. The only way of getting rid of them was to discard everything they like (which, basically, is all dry food not in cans, commercially canned!). All new things purchased went into fruit jars and tightened thoroughly (with fresh lids so the seal was in tact). When buying new items, I immediately emptied them from the original boxes/sacks/packages into the jars.
When they suddenly appeared, they were soon so thick we could hardly walk through the kitchen area without "bumping" into one or more. Well, maybe I exaggerate a bit, but not much! It took nearly two months, but they were finally all gone, never to return, not in that house anyway.
Then . . . last summer, I made the horrid mistake of storing sunflower seeds for the birds *inside* . . . will NEVER do that again, and that was the laundry room! They didn't get into the kitchen cabinets this time but it seemed like one was always turning up somewhere for several weeks after the bird seed was outside. I put up flypaper this time. Three strips suspended around the house, one even in the living room just in case. Though I rarely saw one flying (or on the wall or ceiling), many showed up on that flypaper which was rather revealing as to how many were actually around. It also caught a fair share of fruit flies.
In short, you will never get completely rid of them unless you are diligent about putting everything dry in tightly sealed glass jars immediately. Flypaper will give you clues as to when they are finally gone; don't trust your eyes. I'm actually considering keep a strip of flypaper in the kitchen just in case some come in new food items and I don't see anything; it's just plain creepy to see them in the food! This year, I added the additional precaution of putting all bulk foods in plastic bags in the freezer before storing in the glass jars (and still do) just in case there might be eggs in that even though I've never had an identified problem with that. Even after you think they are gone, continue the extra storage precautions for another couple of months just to be on the safe side . . . I hate so throwing away what should have been good food.
Zip lock bags, commercial packaging, *tightly* fitting lids (unless they are sealed as if to be canned) will not ensure no infestation if the devil-based insects are around at all. They are masters at getting somewhere that there seems to be not even the tiniest opening. There could not have been *that* much food suddenly with eggs in it from the outside as there was that horrible month ten years ago! Until the sunflower seeds this past summer, I had completely forgotten our several weeks of misery ten years ago! It did the first time around, however, get me into a very good habit of storing dry goods in glass jars, also a good mouse-resistant item which will allow me to store the food anywhere, even in the garage or basement if I should want to. :-)
For the record, my dehyrator instructions say to store anything dried with the peelings on in the freezer for at least 48 hours before storing, just in case some insect has laid eggs in the skin of the fruit/vegetable. I do it as a matter of course even though I use vacu-bags, even if I've peeled . . . quite likely overly done, but those critters are not fun and I detest discarding food. On the other hand, the chickens love it, they get protein with their vegs.
Thanks everbody, you are not going to see this often, I think everybody is right. All the advice is extremely helpful, plus I just apreciate the company. The more I talk about it, the more people I find who have had them. I am 49 years old, and never had seen them before. We are going to get a vacum sealer, and use canning jars. We actually had them get inside a canning jar with peanut candy, that I made, it was not vacum sealed, but it was airtight. One thing that is pretty constant, when you talk to those have had them is, their ability to get where they shouldn't be able to. I believe that they can get through plastic bag, no problem. Anyways, we cleaned and sprayed Saturday, today is first day I haven't had to kill one by hand. You know we haven't had roaches or fleas for years, now this. Again, thanks Len
Just not posting any more .... partly b/c someone is archiving all the posts on rec.gardens.edible to his commercial website and I intensely dislike copyright violation.
You know this newsgroup can die, the new posts are getting slower. I personaly, don't want it to. In the past, your post have filled the void. I could care less if somebody copies my post, F them, the point is we are trying to share info and experiance about raising our own, healthy food. Happy Holidays, may you have a good new year. Len
As an example of a dead newsgroup, check alt. music. mandolin signed Len, small land owner, bicyclist, gardener and wannbe musician, Len
Sadly, I've just about decided that Usenet newsgroups are no longer worth it: too many spammers, trolls, stalkers, other problems (including the surreptitious harvesting of whole groups for commercial websites), very poor noise/signal ratio, etc. etc.
I have participated in Usenet newsgroups for over 15 years, but I just don't think (right now) that they are any longer a productive use of time.
So I've pretty much switched to mailing lists instead. I still read this group from time to time. I skipped the whole eternal cross-posted thread.... ugh. That was a beautiful, perhaps classic, example of why I don't think newsgroups a worthwhile use of time at present.
Maybe I'll change my mind in the future, but right now, that's how I see it.
If you want to know my recommendations for mailing lists, please email me privately. My address in this message is real.
I don't know how anyone reads most groups these days without a filter that eliminates crossposts. I use nfilter - no longer at nfilter.org, but the FAQ is cached by google- Search for "nfilter faq"
There are probably alternatives but I've never looked for one. I just never see any post crossposted to a group with politics or religion in its name. It also killfiles any post that goes to more than 3 groups. [you can set it to kill any crossposted message, but I do see occasional posts that are crossposted judiciously that are worth reading]
I occasionally add a certain group that seems to be just troll bait & eliminate crossposts to it. Agent takes care of the never ending threads and occasional trolls.
I've only been on usenet 1/2 that time, but I still find too much wheat among the chaff to give it up.
Even without crossposts- after about 30 posts threads are rarely productive, so I just killfile them when they get too far afield.
I use my real address, too. That is really the only down-side to Usenet that I haven't found a decent cure for. I'm still getting
50-100 'MS security updates' a day, not to mention all those body fixes that I have no need for. But I *want* some folks to be able to reach me easily.
Sorry, I wasn't very clear about that. I have an excellent news program (Agent). I wasn't referring to seeing the cross-posted thread in more than one newsgroup.
I was referring to the fact that cross-posting is notoriously indulged in by trolls (as well as sometimes by non-trolls) and cross-posted threads tend to degenerate fairly quickly into hostility and insult-slinging with no redeeming value -- as indeed, the one here recently did.
Several of my favorites seem to be degenerating, too. I hang in, hoping regulars will learn not to feed the trolls and the obscene children will get tired of their games and go away.
A somewhat chatty group, like rec.gardens, *does* tend to wander off-topic. Moderated groups (like rec.food.recipes) are much tidier, but a little dull. :-)
I thought the "self-sufficiency" thread was originally rather thought-provoking. And of course, relevant to .edible. However, unmoderated debate always seems to attract insult-hurlers.
Stick around, Pat. We can all use reports from the *real* trenches.
I'm sorry, I can't do that. I am trying to earn a little money by doing some cooking and gardening writing.
I can write to mailing lists or newsgroups to get my thoughts organized, and I enjoy doing it. This is often the beginning of a potentially saleable article. It would seem a win-win situation.
But I cannot do so when my writings are taken in their entirety and published on someone's commercial website. This could be thought to constitute 'prior publication' and it detracts greatly from my chances of selling an article. Most editors want articles that have not been published elsewhere.
I understood you loud and clear. I use Agent, too. But I use nfilter to eliminate the crossposting trolls. I have mine set to eliminate anything crossposted to 4 or more groups. That gets 90% of the trolls and to date [4-5 yrs of using nfilter] I've never missed a single thread of interest. The 'kill anything crossposted to a religious or political group filter' gets another 4% or so.
I just retrieved the new messages for this group. Agent says there are 291 messages on my server that I haven't seen yet.
But it only downloaded 1. 289 were crossposted to more than 3 groups. 1 was from:*@nowhere.com* [I just checked googlegroups to see that one. I'm taking off the filter on *@nowhere.com to see where it pops up again. I doubt I would have ever killfiled a whole domain over Froggy.]
Nfilter acts like a 'pre-filter'. I still usually use Agent's filters to manage individual groups.
Nfilter is no longer supported, but it was freeware from the gitgo. I think Hamster will do the same thing & may still have support.
A quick note to the internet provider of the offending site will probably help in removing your content. Specifically, say that you are the copyright owner of the material in question, you've requested that your material not be used (I'm assuming that's the case...if not, start there), and that you would like the offending material removed immediately. Do a search on the DMCA. Once notified, the provider itself can be responsible for copyright infringement if it does nothing. So most are pretty quick to act. :)
If you don't get a suitable response, go to next provider up the chain. It's possible the offending person himself or his friends run his ISP. But somewhere, they are buying a feed, and that company will need to act. If you need help in figuring out who to contact, drop me a line.
I'd be careful about putting your material on mailing lists, as well. Most have some sort of web-based archive available. Once it's there, it's as good as published, too.
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