I’ve had success witha fruit fly hack that I want to share with y’all (which means my lamotrigine must be doing something, since I haven’t had the energy to blog about housekeeping and organizing hacks in forever).
Our kitchen has been plagued by fruit flies this year. Maybe it’s because it’s been warm and sunny. I’m certainly not gonna complain about that.
Whatever the reason, the compost bin has gotten downright gross. I couldn’t toss a peach pit away without a cloud of fruit flies erupting in my face. If I brought a bowl of cherries into the living room to nibble on while I watched TV, a swarm of the bastards would follow me.
My sister suggested the following page at the University of Kentucky’s entomology program. What you do is:
- Take a piece of paper
- Make a cone out of it such that there is a very small hole at the bottom
- Tape the cone in place
- Pour a few ounces of cider vinegar into a jar or glass
- Place the cone in the glass so the tip of the cone isn’t touching the liquid
- Wait for the fruit flies to seal their doom
Since I didn’t have cider vinegar or a bit of banana on hand, I used some cheap Trader Joe’s “balsamic” vinegar. I figured it would be sweet enough to attract the fruit flies. I also removed any fruit that was roaming freely about the kitchen and put it in the fridge so they had no alternate source of food or breeding grounds. I placed the trap on the counter above the compost bin.
The trap started working within an hour. The UK website says to “kill them or release them outdoors”. Yeah, right. There aren’t any screens on the windows in San Francisco, so if I try to give them their freedom they’ll come right back. I think I’m just going to let them drown themselves.