We don’t need vermin in the kitchen, where we store and process our food. In the worst case, the little crawling animals transmit diseases, in the best case they are simply unsavory. So that you can effectively remove the bugs from your kitchen, we will help you identify them.
This is what pests love in the kitchen
Even if you follow all the tips for a hygienic home and your kitchen is always clean you are not necessarily safe from vermin. Pests simply feel at home in warm, damp rooms with dark cracks and full storage cupboards. The crawling animals are usually brought home with the shopping from the supermarket. They can cause damage to food or even furnishings. They also distribute pathogens and thus trigger allergic reactions and gastrointestinal complaints. Food contaminated by pests may have been contaminated with dead insects, droppings, moults, or filaments. If you notice a change in the consistency of the food, this also speaks for an infestation. Grain products and baking ingredients such as flour, cocoa, nuts, dried fruit or spices are most commonly affected. In many cases the name of the vermin revealsin which food it likes to hide. Visit https://pestcom.com/location/meridian_pestcontrol in case you need to know more about the same.
The who’s who in the kitchen: This is how you determine the vermin
There are various insect databases on the Internet that can help identify the crawfish. We have compiled the most common storage pests for you:
The dried fruit moth, also known as the storage or house moth, is one of the most common food pests. You can find the yellowish larvae in the remains of your Christmas bakery, in spring the silver-gray butterfly also lays its eggs in other foods. The dried fruit moth can be recognized by the threads in mostly lumpy food.
- The mealworm larvae are called mealworms. Both larva and beetles like to eat flour products. If infected, the flour becomes lumpy and smells musty. You can also recognize larvae by the scurry in the baked products.
- In the grain weevils, it is mainly the larvae that cause great damage. These eat the inside of the grains and leave the empty hulls behind. They also attack baked goods and other plant-based foodsthey then become warm and smell musty. Grain-containing products also attract bread beetles and flat beetles.
- The bacon beetle lives mainly on animal products such as meat, sausage and bacon. The eight to eleven millimeters tall, brown-black beetles often sit by the window. The hairy larvae are up to 13 millimeters in size.
- Food mites are whitish-gray arachnids and nest in flour, muesli, cereals and dried fruit, for example. Infested products often develop a sweet smell, but taste bitter.
Ants love bread and sugary foods. The smallest ant species in particular are harmful: the yellowish pharaoh ants transmit diseases. A visit to https://pestcom.com/pests/cockroach makes it perfect.
Conclusion
Cockroaches feel good on all types of food, but also in dirt. The omnivores are extremely resilient and in most cases must be eradicated by a professional pest controller.The up to one centimeter long, streamlined silver fish are quite harmless, but often an indicator of mold infestation. They like warm and humid places to stay. In the kitchen you will usually find them under the sink and refrigerator.
