h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This summer we had a plague of flies in the house, they kept settling on the telly. We did out best to chase them away and kill them, but I didn't want a fly catcher, nor to use a spray so we just made do with a rolled up newspaper, a Fred and cleaning fly poo off the telly.

Now we have a plague of moths. I've found a few caterpillas, but clearly somewhere something is going on and once again we're chasing aroud again with a rolled up newspaper and a Fred.

Then last night I dreamt of the black death. Either because 'plagues' were on my mind, or its these damn injections filling my poor body with diseases!

Found out where the moths were coming from. Finally got round to opening up the bird seed, and about a million flew out - really! Must have been breeding in there for a very long time!

Birds eat moths, don't they? Can still use the seed? Full of what I assume are eggs.. Left the container outside for 5 hours and all seem to be dead.

So sorry for genocide, but I have a wildlife GARDEN *not* wildlife HOUSE!

We had a big bucket of bird seed last year, and it ended up being infested with some kind of lice. We only buy a few weeks at a time now

It was left over from the 15kg bag we started in the bad snow earlier in the year. Then a started killing the birds and I wouldn't feed them again. I heard recently the cat had been removed from the area as was generally vicious to everyone and everything so thought I'd try again.

I hope it would have been okay if not for the break. And being kept in a non-airtight container I guess.

Niger seed should be okay, it's still sealed.

the farm shop where I bought it said 'oh yes we have the same problem'. Thanks for putting a nice note up or something.