Saturday, October 4, 2008

Welcome this is a townhouse, we have cluster flies alas...





One thing that happened in the month of September while I was absent from “The Ramblings Of” was an incredible infestation of fruit flies in our home. I suppose it started out as little fruit fly family finding a home full of comfort and bountiful food. This home, being our broken garbage disposal. They gathered inside when I wasn’t running the water, and when I was they would hover around the shadow box I have hanging on the wall above the sink. Over time these fruit flies started having babies, and their babies had babies, and before they knew it, the garbage disposal was just too tiny a home for all of them. So one branch of this family tree flew several feet north and found a lovely little spot in our pantry, one lonesome potato at the bottom of the potato tin. (that I of course didn’t remember) This fruit fly colony was really beginning to be a hassle for us. Of course, once these two areas were well settled, the younger and more adventurous little flies would seek out new frontiers, and travel over to Gideon’s highchair, where they could always find crumbs. Or they would venture upstairs to find a cereal bowl next to my bed (you know pregnant ladies and their late night snacks…) Before we knew it, we had a real problem on our hands, and to make matters worse, peaches were in season, and I had been planning ALL SUMMER to learn how to can peaches. So, on one of Marks days off, we headed over to a friends farm and picked LOTS of peaches. Peaches which sat on our dinning room table and counters for several days, while waiting to be canned. Our fruit flies were in peach heaven!




Enough was enough! I set out to annihilate this little settlement, and I would have no mercy!
I heard of a trick to get rid of fruit flies, “just set a glass of wine out on the counter over night , the flies will be attracted to the wine, then drown in it.” For any Ann Of Green Gables fans, I thought immediately of the mouse in the custard and thought, “hey, not a bad way to go… wine may be even more romantic than custard!” Seeing as how I had a bottle of cheap wine product that we wouldn’t drink and we had A LOT of flies, I set out a bowl of wine.


Guess what, our fruit flies are gone!

1 comment:

Rissa said...

Oh my goodness! This is SO weird because the SAME thing happened to us! It was so gross. They were EVERYWHERE! Finally, I was fed up. I looked online and found a similar remedy - it worked wonders!
I must say, though, that now, I am a freak about fruit flies. I never leave ANYTHING out. I bag banana peels before I put them in the trash. I just can't handle the thought of an infestation again! Perhaps it was the close-up photo on the website where I found the remedy to get rid of them. Ugh, I don't know.
I'm glad you were able to kill 'em! :)