Fruit Fly Emergency
Ok, this is gross I know but I need help with fruit flies.
NORMALLY I keep an immaculate home.
NORMALLY I can leave a bowl of fruit on the coffee table and not get a single fly.
NORMALY I am home and not leaving my husband alone for about 2 weeks while I attend a wedding in Houston.
My husband apparently is incapable of doing the dishes and doesn't pay attention to taking the garbage out (A bag ripped just a little and left fermenting/molding... thing in the bottom) and did dishes like 1-2 times leaving dirty pans and stuff everywhere. (He also did no laundry, no vacuuming, no sweeping... OK he did scoop the catbox at least. Does he forget that when I'm not there the dirt still is? All his friends are just as dirty, because they're bachelors, I thought I was training him better than this!! I have brought a bottle of Febreeze with me when we'd visit Smurf and Bob and spray the place because I couldn't stand their smell otherwise.)
Instead of coming home to a clean apartment (like I left it) and maybe with flowers on the table (a girl can have high hopes) I came home to dust-bunny (made of pet hair) tumbleweeds, dishes everywhere, and around 30 or so fruit flies all over the place!!! I could have killed him. I made him spend the whole night washing dishes, he tried to say the first load needed to dry first and I handed him a towel. Meanwhile I went grocery shopping and spent Tuesday vacuuming and mopping and sweeping and dusting and all that.
I've been hunting the flies with my febreeze but I ran out. And I don't own hairspray. That first night I go a lot of them, I brought the stanky garbage bin into the bathroom and they followed so I sprayed like no tommorrow. I was using sprays because mist+tinywings=DEATH >.> But I'm not going to go buy peticides to spray, not with two animals living in here.
Does anyone know any tricks for killing off the flies? Even though I've since cleaned everything thoroughly, they're still around in my kitchen. Anyone know any tricks for getting my home fly-free once again?
Check out this thread for help:
http://vegweb.com/index.php?topic=18757.0
Thanks, I'm going to try the vinegar thing, I have some rice vinegar handy. <3
The fruit flies are nasty this year. You can have an anally clean kitchen (like my MIL) and still have fruit flies.
BTW I think it was Diane or maybe Dragonfly (one of the resident bird ladies) has mentioned that Fabreeze is deadly toxic to parrots. That stuff can't be good for you!!
K^2
I wonder if setting up a fan would help clear them out. I know mossies don't hang out in windy locations, maybe it's the same for fruit flies?
A breeze does help... temporarily! As soon as I close my windows and cut off my cross breeze I find that the flies come right back. But then we have a big garbage strike going on right now (coming up on 2 months! Wahoo!) so even if my house is sterilized, the fruit flies will breed outdoors then find their way in. *le sigh*
i tend to do the fruitfly dance... it involves jumping up into the air and clapping your hands a lot. its not very effective though.
my bf is considering the vaccuum cleaner nozzle as the next strategy- he plans to vacuum all of the the air in our appartment, a square foot at a time. he's just working out how to stop all the flies from moving into a section he's already covered, while he vaccuums- when he gets that sorted, it'll be all systems go. ::)
i spose thats what i get for growing tomato plants in my appartment- i've got 9 completely hyperactive, totally out of control, 8 foot high tomato plants, complete with enough baby tomatoes for an army, and a fruitfly party going on in my solarium. every morning i expect to see a giants castle in the sky, when look up at my plant stalks. (yeah, i know thats meant to be beans, but seriously...they won't stop growing!!!!!).
not much help.... but good luck, anyway!
i tend to do the fruitfly dance... it involves jumping up into the air and clapping your hands a lot. its not very effective though.
Haha. I do this too. Thankfully, I live alone ;D
GAH--why are you guys killing them? Where's the compassion? they're just trying to live too! Don't punish the fruit flies for your SOs mistake........Would you go around killing a bunch of raccoons if they loitered around your trash outside?
Do the vinegar and release method PLEASE
With the "vinegar and release" method, many of the flies will end up drowning so you're still killing them. I know it's not ideal, but there are a couple creatures that I have no compunction about killing: fruit flies and mosquitoes. Other than those two bugs I will do everything within my power to trap them and release things outside, but fruit flies drive me batty and make it impossible to cook (or live!) when there's clouds milling around and mosquitoes... well that's just an automatic reflex.
i've had a chat with my flies, and have explained to them that if they would please just hang out with the tomato plants, and stop biting me (i don't know what kind they are but yeah, they bite, and i have allergies and an over-active histamine response, so i'm constantly covered in impressive itchy weals as a result) i'll stop clapping my hands in their vicinity. swooshing has not been an effective method of removing them, and i have tried unsuccessfully to encourage them to live elsewhere through other means. i could not grow tomatoes... but then i'd no doubt be contributing to a plethora of environmental problems by getting them from the store.
i'll take my bad karma that i no doubt have coming, along with my karma for not fighting the appartment buildings management over the rights of the rainforest ants who have infested our building to an uninterrupted life and freedom of movement to swarm all over my home and live in the walls... the dishwasher... the phone earpiece... the back of the tv... my dinner, etc. :-X
GAH--why are you guys killing them? Where's the compassion? they're just trying to live too! Don't punish the fruit flies for your SOs mistake........Would you go around killing a bunch of raccoons if they loitered around your trash outside?
Do the vinegar and release method PLEASE
This worked for me....and none of the little critters had to die.
Take a glass or a jar and put some slices of banana or some apple sauce (really any slices of fruit will work). The older and more mushy the better because those little guys/gals like their fruit rotten. Cover it with some plastic wrap and poke a few holes in the top with a pencil or pen. Best place to leave it is usually near the kitchen sink (the fruit flies are drawn toward moisture)> They are also most active first thing in the morning and gravitate towards light.
Once you have a few in the jar/glass....just go outside and take off the wrap and they will fly away...
Don't do as I did the first time.....open the window, stick the jar outside...then watch the majority of them just fly back inside. :D
Anyway.....it works...and all the flies get to survive. :)
I used to like to go jedi on their asses with my vacuum hose. They think you can't see them if they stay v e r y still. So if you apprach them sloth-like, and s l o w l y move the vacuum hose nozzle towards them, they don't move and you can easily suck them up (though it was sometimes more fun attempting to catch them in mid air). Then you just take the vacuum canister outside and release the little buggers.
However, it evntually occured to me that this was probably a horrific experience for them. (I don't think I'd like it much.) So I did the ACV in a jar technique, but I thoroughly doused a rag with it and stuck that in there. No more swarm of fruitflies. No traumatized or drowned fruitflies, either.
I used to like to go jedi on their asses with my vacuum hose. They think you can't see them if they stay v e r y still. So if you apprach them sloth-like, and s l o w l y move the vacuum hose nozzle towards them, they don't move and you can easily suck them up (though it was sometimes more fun attempting to catch them in mid air). Then you just take the vacuum canister outside and release the little buggers.
However, it evntually occured to me that this was probably a horrific experience for them. (I don't think I'd like it much.) So I did the ACV in a jar technique, but I thoroughly doused a rag with it and stuck that in there. No more swarm of fruitflies. No traumatized or drowned fruitflies, either.
haha. I love it!
i tend to do the fruitfly dance... it involves jumping up into the air and clapping your hands a lot. its not very effective though.
my bf is considering the vaccuum cleaner nozzle as the next strategy- he plans to vacuum all of the the air in our appartment, a square foot at a time. he's just working out how to stop all the flies from moving into a section he's already covered, while he vaccuums- when he gets that sorted, it'll be all systems go. ::)
Oh my goodness. That just about killed me, I'm laughing so hard.
Thank you, Jen
What about...other infestations?
Like fly-like things that aren't so attracted to food....just your living space in general
I'm gross. We're gross. We've got bugs. And they AREN'T normal, I think they've mutated
Resident Evil bugs? Have they started trying to eat your brains?