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Like a plague
I just took a Diet Pepsi out of the fridge. There was a fruit fly sitting on the top of the can.
UGH.
I had never seen a fruit fly in our house until three weeks ago. They appeared out of nowhere, swarming mostly around the sink area. I put all the fresh fruit into the fridge. I threw away a bunch of elderly onions that seemed to be the hub of activity. I emptied and scrubbed the compost container. I cleaned and cleaned. I wiped everything down with bleach. I steam-mopped the floor. But the damn flies won't go away.
I suspected they were coming out of the sink -- specifically the garbage disposal -- so I taped a plastic bag over the drain overnight. The next morning there was not a single fly in the plastic bag. There were plenty still weaving their way around the kitchen.
I put out a bowl of cider vinegar covered with hole-punched plastic wrap. The stuff is supposed to attract them, and then trap them under the plastic wrap (I guess they're pretty stupid). Not a single fly got stuck.
They do loooove an open wine bottle. Bottles must be kept corked at all times to keep the flies out. We have left a few mostly-empty bottles out to trap flies, and this always results in dozens of drowned bugs, but it doesn't appear to diminish the numbers still buzzing around the kitchen.
I keep a bottle of Windex on the counter and am using it for one-off assassinations. Spray, then wipe. But killing fruit flies one at a time isn't very satisfying. Or productive.
There is a little brown fly flitting around my laptop screen as I type this, and it's driving me NUTS.
So I'm basically at my wit's end. I want to be able to have a glass of wine without covering it with plastic wrap or picking dead bugs out of it between sips. Suggestions?
July 2, 2008 7:27 PM
Do you have a/c in your house? Or at least a whole-house fan? I'm thinking that the moving air would draw them into the filter....
It's the heat that you had that has caused this. We have plagues of fruit flies here in Ireland only in the hottest of summers--the last time was 2006, when it was often as high as 80 F. In 2007 and this year, with the temps hovering in the low-to-mid teens (that's the 50s to you) and lots of rain, there are no fruit flies. I think you've done everything I ever did, and more. A cold snap will see them off.
I had a fruit fly plague once when I lived in Berkeley. There was a banana peel rotting away in a hidden garbage can that normally didn't have food waste in it. We noticed the flies a long time before we figured out where they were coming from.
Somewhere in your apartment you have a breeding spot for the fruit flies. They are not coming in from outside. It is someplace that is warm, moist, and has a food source for the larvae. Wet bathing suit in a bag somewhere? Old apple core in your luggage? That kind of thing. It is gross, yes, but fixable if you find the source.
You will know the breeding spot when you find it because a giant cloud of flies will lift off and horrify you with their numbers. I suggest taking the offending thing outside before you open it or try to clean it.
I also recommend wet hands for smooshing the ones that are flying around. The wet hands cause the flies to stick to you and they can't get away. It is very satisfying to wet your hands and roam around and kill a couple dozen fruit flies in one swell foop.
Visualize Lt. Ellen Ripley as you work. You know the bit in Aliens where she's killing the nest? It helps.
this is bad news, fruit flies are drinking diet..!
They used to come w/ our organic bananas. Our market now has a new organic supplier and the fruit flies have gone away, thankfully.