Destination? Moth City.
This September I returned to my apartment after a summer away (article on this to follow) to find I had at least an extra 20 roommates. Pantry Moths (also known as Indianmeal Moths and the scourge of Dutch student houses) had made their way into my kitchen. I’d heard of them of course. I’d even had a friend living in a house of 12 people where they had a minor infestation. But I never thought I’d have to deal with it - not in my neighbourhood. Like contracting an STI, I thought “it could never happen to someone like me”. I felt shameful - was our apartment really so grimy that such beasts would set up shop there? Honestly (if my mother is reading this) the answer is no. Our apartment, in the grand scheme of things, can often be described as a normal level of cleanliness. So what is it that draws these winged pests to my cupboards, what are they, and why do I hate them?
Pantry Moths are the little fuckers that nest in your grains and dried products. They look like this:
They reproduce at an alarming rate, and once they make a home in your kitchen, you’ll find them hiding in your cereal, your pasta, your couscous and pretty much anything else that’s dry and granular. They lay hundreds of eggs which turn into larvae which turn into moths. My friends in Amsterdam Oost have been battling them all summer - the moths spread to the point that they were finding larvae and cocoons on the ceiling. “Can’t you just lay those sticky traps?” No. The problem is that they reproduce faster than the traps will catch them.
This means I spent around a month in constant warfare. It was like Starship Troopers but with no Niel Patrick Harris. I would get home from work at 2:30 AM to find the amount of moths in our traps had increased. This told me one thing - that I had to do another sweep of our dried goods, disinfect our cupboards, and after finding moth evidence (such as cocoons, larvae, and the webs that the larvae create - gross I know) place such evidence in a trash bag, and carry it to the rubbish disposal down the street. You may be thinking “Why do this at 3AM?” Because, as I stood in the middle of my kitchen, as the rest of the city slept, all I knew was that every hour I am complacent, my enemies grow in strength and numbers. You can try and keep them out and seal your food in containers, but the moths and their larvae can even squeeze through the tiniest of gaps in a sealed tupperware, and even chew through plastic packaging. For me it was a horror movie creature feature on a very small scale.
It’s not just the pantry moths having a field day - Amsterdam is apparently in the midst of a Mosquito epidemic, east coast cities in the USA are battling an invasive species of lanternfly, and there are now bedbugs running rampant in Paris and London (and heading our way no doubt). The long summer and high temperatures continuing into the Autumn seem to be the main reason for these population booms. The environment is freaking out man, and it feels like the first of many biblical plagues. So what’s the message of this article? Apart from realising insects in my house make me insane, there must be some kind of lesson learned. I guess its a bug’s world too, and since we’ve spent the last 100 years fucking with the temperature, we have to make peace with the fact we’re gonna have to share our streets and sheets with a whole bunch of critters. Even if I find them very icky.
There may still be a few months left in my house, but that’s ok because most of them are dead, and its nothing compared to what's to come. So sleep tight, check the crevices in your second hand mattresses, and pray the bed bugs don’t bite, and the moths don’t breed in your gravy granules.
