6 common kitchen bugs and how to deter them

Do you find yourself opening up your cupboard doors and seeing small bugs crawling about? Or maybe your fruit bowl keeps attracting all types of insects. If so, you’re probably wondering what these bugs are and where they’re coming from.

There are many types of bugs that love to infiltrate UK kitchens and torment you, attacking food or contaminating countertops. Failing to clean out old food or keep your kitchen tidy is one way to attract them faster.

That’s why we’ve made this non-exhaustive list of some of the most common bugs you’ll find lurking in your kitchen. We’ve also included a few easy ways to get rid of them!

If you’re dealing with an infestation, however, don’t attempt to solve it alone. Premier Pest Control is here to provide professional extermination, ridding your home of unwanted pests.

1. Biscuit weevil (Stegobium paniceum)

One of the most common types of bugs to find in your home, the biscuit weevil is characterised by its brown colour and tiny 2-3 cm form with a rounded “humped” profile.

You’ll mostly find these hiding and burrowing in bags of dried goods, including biscuits (hence their name), flour, pasta, cereals, and spices. They’ll often also make their way into pet food and even non-food items, such as herbal remedies.

However, adults can fly, so you may also see them high up on shelves or near lights. Their shape and colour often get them mistaken for a woodworm, since they look so similar.

Issues

Biscuit weevils can lay eggs on food, contaminating your items and causing illness if consumed. Adults will often chew through packaging, causing an infestation to spread if the food isn’t removed.

You’re more likely to first spot them around cupboards, or spot pin-sized holes and gritty frass in packaging.

How to avoid

• Discard any affected items from cupboards and drawers to stop them spreading.
• Deep clean your shelves and sides to get rid of germs or eggs.
• Place all of your food in airtight containers so they can’t get in.

2. Grain weevil (Sitophilus granarius)

Also known as granary of wheat weevils, grain weevils like to feed on seeds, grains, and beans.

They are tiny, brown “snout” beetles that develop entirely inside whole grains. The females lay eggs in the food, and the larvae grow, feeding on the food. You’ll see small brown bugs climbing through bags of wheat, rice, pasta, or bird feed, or you might spot small holes in the packaging.

Issues

While these bugs don’t bite, they do mate and produce quickly, causing an infestation to spread in no time.

Grain weevils contaminate food, causing illness in humans and making your kitchen feel dirty or look unsightly. Given that the life cycle is temperature-dependent, activity can persist for months in warm areas in the home.

Left unchecked, they will spoil all of your food and seed stock, causing you to throw away a lot of items.

How to avoid

• Throw away any bags that have been contaminated to stop them from spreading.
• Thoroughly vacuum and scrub any shelves and cupboards, focusing on cracks and kickboard edges where adults hide.
• Place higher-risk items (whole grains, rice, bird seed, nuts) in the freezer for 3 days before placing them in cupboards.

3. Indian meal moth (Plodia interpunctella)

Often known as the “pantry moth”, the indian meal moth targets dried foods, such as cereals, flour, nuts, seeds, spices and dried fruit.

Popularly found in homes across both the US and the UK, these moths are quite small, but they’re easy to identify by the silky webbing they leave on food or across food packaging. You may also see their offspring, tiny cream-to-pink caterpillars around lid rims, hinges and shelf edges.

You may see them flying around more at night.

Issues

Indian meal moths will lay their eggs on or near dry goods. The larvae then feed on your dried food and hide in cracks, screw holes, the underside of shelves or even along the ceiling line before emerging as new adults a few weeks later.

If you don’t tackle the issue early on, they’ll just continue to populate your home.

How to avoid

• Find and discard any contaminated food to get rid of unhatched eggs.
• Vacuum and brush away pupal cases and webbing from the joints and corners of your cupboards before wiping down shelves.
• Keep all food stored in air-tight containers to prevent an infestation in the future.

4. Cockroaches

We’re all familiar with the cockroach, and they’re not a pretty sight to see in our kitchens, especially when we’re eating.

In the UK, if you see a cockroach in your home, it’s most probably the German cockroach (Blattella germanica) or the Oriental cockroach (Blatta orientalis). You’ll find these hiding in warm, moist areas in the home, such as kitchens and bathrooms.

They also burrow behind fridges, dishwashers, under sinks, and along kickboards.

Issues

Besides making our homes look and feel dirty, cockroaches can contaminate food and surfaces, and their shed skins and droppings are known allergy triggers for some people, especially for those with asthma.

They also breed very fast, so if you don’t start tackling the issue right away, it’ll soon be out of your control. Since they can survive on small bits of water, a slow drip under the sink or condensation around a pipe can sustain them even if your worktops are spotless.

How to avoid

• Fix any drips or leaks in pipes and seal any holes around pipes, skirtings and kickboards.
• Clean any crumbs, grease lines and spill residue from the floor edge and rear coils of your fridge or freezer.
• Make sure you don’t let bins overflow by changing and discarding them regularly.

5. Fruit flies (Drosophila spp)

We’re all too familiar with the fruit fly, those tiny, pesky flies that just won’t stop circling the food you’ve left out on the counter.

They mostly show up in the kitchen when it’s warm and humid; fruit flies only need a thin film of fermenting liquid to breed, which can be anything from residue from juice to over-ripe fruit or a build-up of germs in your sink drain.

You may notice them hovering around fruit bowls or smelly bins.

Issues

Since fruit flies have a rapid life cycle, eggs can become adults in around 1–2 weeks, so their number will quickly grow in your home if the issue isn’t dealt with immediately.

When left to breed in kitchens, they can contaminate surfaces and ingredients while feeding and resting, making your food bad to eat and causing illness when ingested.

How to avoid

• Get rid of any possible breeding sites by clearing out old bins, cleaning up juice spills, throwing out off fruit and veg, and keeping any bin lids closed.
• Dry out the area around your sink at night and scrub the drain rims where films collect.
• Add liners or bags to kitchen caddies to prevent a buildup of mush from food that’s gone off, and wash and disinfect bins after every use.
• Set up a vinegar trap to catch flies that won’t leave your kitchen.

6. Flour beetle (Tribolium confusum)

The flour beetle isn’t as cute as it sounds. In fact, these look similar to the biscuit weevil, since they both have brown bodies, although the flour beetle is more of a reddish-brown colour.

These are often 3–4 mm long, and they thrive in processed dry goods, such as cereals, flour, spices, cocoa, baking mixes, and dried pet food. Unlike grain weevils, the flour beetle doesn’t attack whole, undamaged kernels; instead, they opt for milled or broken material and the dusty residues that collect in packet seams and in the corners of cupboards.

Issues

Flour beetles multiply in warm homes and will keep going as long as there’s a food film to feed on, so you may notice an influx during summer in moist areas, like bathrooms and kitchens.

You’ll find adult beetles hiding under kickboards, in screw holes, and cracks in the walls. Since they’re so small and they’re constantly moving about, it may be a while before you notice one scurrying around your kitchen.

So when you see one, act fast, since they’ve probably been here a while, and populations grow quickly.

How to avoid

• Start by binning any old or contaminated food packages from the cupboards.
• Then vacuum seams, bracket tracks, and corners to remove dust and larvae before washing and drying the shelves.
• Place food in airtight containers so the beetles can’t get to it.
• Put higher-risk goods (flour, baking mixes, nuts) in the freezer for around three to four days before storing in the cupboard.

Get rid of kitchen bugs with Premier Pest Control

Are kitchen pests affecting your quality of life at home? Dealing with a bug infestation in the kitchen can take a toll on your mental and physical health, causing stress, making it difficult to cook meals, and forcing you to discard uneaten food.

Luckily, we’re equipped to deal with a range of kitchen pests, from cockroaches to bigger issues like mice. Our local technicians will carry out a careful inspection and provide you with the appropriate treatment so that you can rid your home of pests once and for all.

We provide straightforward pricing, a quick eradication process, and follow-up afterwards to make sure the problem is gone. If you’re dealing with an infestation that’s gotten out of control, contact us today.