How to Get Rid of Weevils in Your Home

Saying that finding weevils in your pantry can be pretty unpleasant is an understatement. They have no earthly business being there. Still, sometimes it happens, and when it does, you need to take reasonable measures to ensure that the weevils don’t appear again.

So, why do you have weevils in your home in the first place, and how you can get rid of them? Let’s take a look at what the pest control team of Fantastic Services Australia has in store and how you can battle the weevils at home.

What are weevils, and how do they get in?

Weevils are tiny, evil creatures that feed on carbs. They love munching on starches, so you can expect to find them in rice, flour (one of the reasons they’re nicknamed “flour insects”), oats, corn, barley, etc., anything that has starches in it.

Weevils are a type of beetle, but their small size makes their lifestyle quite interesting.

Instead of carrying their food around, like traditional beetles, ants, and roaches, weevils rather live inside their food. They are quite efficient in that regard since their feeding habits also help them build a breeding ground.

Weevils are born inside grain and for weeks eat their way out. The female lays her eggs inside the grain kernels. She creates a small hole, deposits her egg, and then seals it. It’s a process, which she’ll sometimes repeat hundreds of times. She will avoid grains that already have eggs from other weevils inside.

Once they hatch, the weevil larvae begin eating their surroundings and spend the entirety of their larval and pupal stages inside the grain. By the time they eat their way out, they’ve already matured and are ready to destroy even more grain. This type of reproduction and a particular diet make weevils a worldwide pest, responsible for tons of destroyed crops. Through our best efforts, we’ve not been able to solve this problem on a global scale.

Types of weevils and the food they attack

Due to their reproduction and diet, weevils can end up in all sorts of packaged food. Entire live weevils, parts of them, or even their eggs, can be inadvertently brought into your room through your food.

So if you eat any food inside your room, you may be inviting these little invaders into your sanctum. Here are the most popular types of weevils you can find in your home:

Those are the main ones. There are potentially many more, but considering there are more than 80,000 species, we’re not going to get into that much detail.

How to get rid of weevils

The most important thing is not to panic. Weevils are not dangerous. Here’s how to get rid of weevils in your kitchen:

That’s it! It’s that simple. Other rooms shouldn’t be infested with weevils, but it should be pretty easy to get rid of them even if they are. Just keep the room clean and make sure food stays where it belongs – the kitchen.

But if you ever find yourself in a situation where you prefer to eat in your bedroom (we all know that sweet allure of binge-watching), or you bring food in for any other reason and end up weevil-infested, now you know the solution.

Takeaways

Have you ever had problems with pests in the kitchen cupboards? Which ones were the toughest to get rid of? Tell us in the comments below.