There is a moth and silverfish problem in this house

I am back to chasing moths in the pantry - it seems that because I am the only one who does it, the only one who tries to get rid of these moths when I see them, that the others leave the pantry door wide open for hours at a time, this problem is not going away any time soon.

I cleaned most of the pantry and got rid of most of the moth eggs/larvae a few weeks ago (for the 2nd or 3rd time this year, but this time I was more ruthless about throwing away more items, just in case they were infested) and that seemed to have gotten a good result, because there were no larvae, worms or moths around for a bit, but obviously I didn't do the whole job properly, because they have been slowly coming back. Ugh! I know part of the issue is that my mother didn't wash the big bowls she had in there, that I asked her to wash. I thought that was only fair, since I was cleaning the whole pantry, that she should do something! But she didn't do it. And I didn't do anything about it either, so that must have been a source for the larvae/eggs.

Since I have stored most of my items in glass jars with air-tight lids in the pantry and some other food stuff I have stored in the fridge, I don't have to worry about the moths getting into them. But I still have a few food items in packets in the pantry and if the moths have come back again, it means I had better check them all later today and start throwing away anything that seems infected and package those which seem unaffected into air-tight glass jars. I will probably keep on storing things in the fridge.

Of course my parents complain bitterly about me storing my food in the refrigerator, but if they were more diligent about the moths, there would be no need. They can have their food infested with moths, but I would rather eat food that has no such infestation.

The other problem here is the silverfish. They are constantly around. There are so many of them here. I have cleaned out cupboards (my own and in the rest of the house), many times to get rid of their infestation, but my mother wont clean out her cupboards or let me do it, because she doesn't want to know about it, even though it is a real problem here, she prefers to ignore it. And in doing so, the problem keeps getting worse, because those silverfish continue to breed and cause infestation everywhere.  I constantly see them in the bathroom and toilet especially, but also on the floors all around the house.

When I have lived elsewhere, even though I brought my things from this house, I never had any type of silverfish or moth infestations. And why is that? Because when I saw the first moth or silverfish (because obviously their eggs/larvae must have been in my stuff), I got rid of them straight away. And with that, it prevented them from reproducing and causing an infestation. Simple really.

That is why I call this the "insect house", because really it is!

The issue with my mother is that she prefers to ignore anything she doesn't like, so that causes the problem to get worse, of course. She wont confront it, to deal with it and get rid of it. She's rather like that in all areas of her life. Her son being the most pertinent and obvious example of her being totally "blind" and not viewing reality.

Cleaning out the pantry to get rid of the moths

Yesterday afternoon I started to clean out the pantry which has a lot of pantry moth eggs, larvae and worms - basically a pantry moth infestation. It's ridiculous that this has been an issue and only because no-one else in the house does anything about it. Everyone else seems to leave the pantry door wide open to allow more of those moths to come inside. For a while there, every time you opened the pantry door, a few of those pantry moths would flutter out.

I cleaned out the pantry about two months ago and got rid of a whole heap of those pantry moths and also a great many packets of food which had been infected with the eggs of the moths, which were spoilt and no longer viable. It upset me that I had to throw out so much of my food - pasta, grains, nuts, seeds, rice - because of these moths and their eggs.

My mother got upset last time I cleared out, cleaned and re-organised the pantry because she "couldn't find anything". That is because I re-organised everything so that all like items were grouped together - all the pasta was together, all the rice together, all nuts together, all legumes together, all jams together, all pasta sauces together and so on. It was too organised for her.  She likes to dump things wherever there is a space, rather than to make sure everything is in the right place. I am really good at organising things so that the most amount of items fit into the smallest space possible, but in an organised, easy-to-find way. I even pack more things in my suitcases than other people I know because I know how to fill every space well.

The reason that I organise things that way is not because I am a neat freak, but rather because it just makes it easier to find the food you want when all the same types of things are placed together in the same area, so you don't have to search too much or too hard to find what you are looking for. Just common sense really.

Earlier in the day I found some empty glass jars with airtight lids, washed them and let them dry. Once they were dry, I used them to add my pasta, nuts, legumes, breakfast cereals and seeds which were still okay and uninfected with the moth eggs. I labelled everything and organised them in the pantry. First I cleaned all the sides and bench space in the pantry, found quite a few moth larvae in between cereals and on the walls that I had to get rid of. It was quite a job to do, but I felt quite accomplished and happy with my work when I finished it.

When I showed my mother how I organised the food in the pantry and where everything was, so that it I made it easy to find what you were looking for, she didn't complain about it.  I think maybe because I had to throw away a great deal of her food that had been infected with the moth eggs (like a 5kg bag of rice among other dry foods), she was a bit more subdued and realised that what I was doing was a good thing for ensuring the food is kept moth-free.

I still have a number of packets of my nuts in the fridge, where they are okay to stay, but I have to get some more glass jars tomorrow to store them in there.