Pennsylvania Stored Product Pest Control
Have you ever opened a canister of flour, to find it wiggling? Have you seen beetles crawling around in your cereal? Where did they come from? These are called stored product pests (also known as pantry pests).
You must wonder if there are more of these pests in the food at your home or business. The answer is, “maybe, but not necessarily.” Stored product pests can enter your food at the time of harvest or processing or when it is packaged for shipping. The incursion also might have happened where you purchased the product, explain the PA pest control experts at Viking.
Regardless, you need to deal with this infestation immediately, before these pests spread to other packaged food. That is why you need us, Viking Pest Control. We are your pest control expert in Pennsylvania!
What Are Stored Product Pests?
Stored product pests can include any pests—from fleas to mice—that get into your stored food. More narrowly, though, they include moths, beetles, and weevils. Common moth species are meal moths and Indian meal moths.
Viking’s Pennsylvania exterminators list the broad array of beetles found in stored products:
- Saw-toothed grain beetles
- Drugstore beetles
- Cigarette beetles
- Flour beetles
- Warehouse and cabinet beetles
- Spider beetles
Weevils, which are tiny beetles, comprise granary, rice, and maize weevils and bean weevils.
Unlike other pests, stored product pests will not bite or sting you or others at your Pennsylvania home or business. Nor are they harmful if swallowed by accident.
How to Identify Stored Product Pests
All the species named above are small and could have buried themselves in the stored product they have infested, so they might be hard to identify precisely. Moreover, insects at any stage of development (egg, larvae, pupae, and adult) can exist inside a stored food container simultaneously.
What Problems Can Stored Product Pests Cause for Pennsylvania Home and Business Owners?
Stored product pests have a negative psychological effect on those who discover or, worse, accidentally consume them. However, experts say that common stored product pests are harmless to humans.
What an unpleasant experience for customers or clients at your business, though, especially if you make or sell food. So, again, do not let that infestation get out of control. Call a stored product pest exterminator: Viking Pest Control.
How to Get Rid of Stored Product Pests in Pennsylvania
The best way to control stored product pests in your Pennsylvania home or business is to call our pest control experts. Be proactive. The Pennsylvania pest control experts at Viking Pest recommend quick action to eliminate stored product pests before they cause damage.
Regularly inspecting food storage areas in your home or office that are at risk for infestation by stored product pests will allow you to eliminate the insects before they cause severe damage to your Pennsylvania home or business.
These at-risk areas include pantries, cupboards, open shelves, even refrigerators or freezers. They could be anywhere you store containers of grains, rice, beans, and other dried legumes (or meal made from them), cereal, pasta, or other foods.
A caution: Spraying your food-storage areas with insect deterrents is not recommended. You might end up poisoning yourself or others, which is far worse than ingesting the pests in this case. Eliminating stored product pests should be left to the pest management professionals.