This is a trick question. Pantry moths are actually not of this world. They can’t “be gotten rid of.” Sorry. You could literally plant a nuclear bomb in the infested area, detonate it, come back a week later and see a moth or five hanging around the wreckage.

I’m into the 3rd week or so of this dilemna. And I STILL haven’t licked the problem. I threw out everything in the pantry. EVERYTHING! And then I sprayed clorox bleach over the entire empty space; every nook, every cranny. It, was, bleachy in there.

SPOTLESS

I didn’t put anything back into the cupboard. I left it overnight. Then, today, while I was cleaning, I decided to open the cupboard and admire something that’s clean in my house. And look who materialized out of thin air! There was NOTHING there, and then this damn moth just appeared! He didn’t fly in! HE JUST APPEARED!

DEMON MOTH!

If you have one of these in your house, then you have 100 in your house.

I’m convinced that they are interdimensional insects. I don’t know how else to explain how they keep appearing after I clean. And it’s now become a sick obsession with me to seek them out in the kitchen. I have now found them in other cupboards of our kitchen, on the walls, on the ceiling. One here, one there. And they just stand there, waiting for me to smack them with the swatter. They don’t care. They know that for every one that I destroy, there are 5 more in the wings. It’s a sick game they are playing with me. And they are winning. I keep opening cleaned out cupboards, like a magician doing his reveal, expecting the abracadabra of yet another moth manifesting in the empty space.

So what is the actual best way to get rid of these things? The only advice that seems to be working amongst the online community is to clean out all the open packaged food, clean out and vaccuum the cupboards, and then repeat as necessary.

So the battle wages on. I massacre throughout the day. With more moth blood on my conscious than I think is allowed for entry into an enlightened afterlife, I settle in to my new path in life: Anathematized Moth Assassin (at least that will be my super villian name)