Infested

This week we had an infestation of fruit flies. It was REALLY bad! We've had them before, a couple here and there brought in on some older piece of fruit, but we've never had an infestation of these stupid things!

I noticed that they were congregating in my sink, so i cleaned it out. Didn't work. I ran boiling water down the drain, in case they were breeding in there. Didn't work. Tried bleach. That may have worked, actually, but there were still a few dozen of them buzzing around the house in various places. They loved one particular plant I have that I know has a scale problem. Sure enough, they were making a home in the plant. When I moved the plant, my floor was all sticky (plant bug sap) and I found the remains of larvae or some kind of bug casing all in a pile behind the plant. SO GROSS! I tossed the plant, and scrubbed the floor really well.

I still had fruitflies.

Son of a *$&#&....!! I can't tell you how angry I was! (not to mention itchy...at just the thought of bugs laying eggs in my drains and plants!) Even as I'm writing this, I'm feeling itchy. Argg! I hate frickin things, and they were SO hard to kill!

So I went onto the net, and looked for solutions. They said after you poured bleach down the drain (number one solution for getting rid of their nests) you had to catch the others so they didn't lay eggs else where.

I tried 3 different traps. One was a bowl of applejuice, with clingwrap over top, with a few holes poked in the wrap. The second was a bowl of red wine, with clingwrap. The third was a tall glass , with a little red wine at the bottom, and a simple cone (made from a regular sheet of paper) just resting in the glass. Apparently, the stupid things love wine, and can fly INTO the traps, but are too dumb to find their way OUT of them

Strangely, this Dutch girl didn't think twice about cracking open a good bottle of red wine for the sole purpose of killing those disgusting things. (It was an expensive one too...given to us by a business associate) But I never liked wine anyway.

Well, never did such a joyous shout come from my kitchen when the next morning I saw fruitfly carcasses floating in the wine. "Die you little bastards!!"

(yes...they loved the wine, didn't like the juice, and the cone method worked 10x better than the cling-wrap)

So now I am "fruit-fly-free", down a large plant, a bottle of wine, and the money that is now sitting in my swear-jar.