Thursday, July 8, 2010

Fruit Flies

We came home from a wonderful vacation (staring with a camp out at Nana's, family camp in Michigan, Warren Dunes State Park, Mammoth Caves in Kentucky, and ended with a campout in the Smokies....post with pics will follow in the near future) to a home that was INVADED by FRUIT FLIES!

It was unbelievable!!!




It was my own fault. Unbeknownst to me, I had left a half of a banana in the fruit bowl. It rotted and bred a colony or 2 of nasty, pesky little fruit flies. {GAG}



I cleaned, I bleached, I wiped, I swatted. I repeated all of these steps. All in vain, the fruit flies just moved from corner to corner in the kitchen and bathrooms. Making babies, I'm sure!



I was SO annoying. So gross! I felt like the Egyptians in Exodus! Well, it wasn't that bad....but it was bad.

Skeptically, I looked up remedies online.

I am thrilled to report, on my first try at home remedies...I {think} I have annihilated them. Its amazing!



Here is what I did:

Took 3 small bowls and filled them 2/3 full with balsamic vinegar.
Mixed 1/3 c water with 2 pumps of kitchen soap
Poured the soap mixture evenly into the vinegar cups



Set the bowls in the corners and waited. With in minutes the flies were lighting on the bowls. Within hours I could not find any swarms of flies in the house. I waited until morning and dumped the vinegar into a tea strainer.

The result?
Hundreds of drowned fruit flies.

Amazing! Magical!

I may just leave a little bowl on the counter from now on!!!

4 comments:

Kelli Staggs said...

Eww! I got them last summer/fall. Gross! Glad your remedy worked...I'll keep it in mind next time :o)

The Reeds said...

How crazy! I just went on a massive road trip to Louisville for a friends wedding and went to the Mammoth caves by myself.. I guess it was on Monday. Who would have guessed that our paths would have come so close to passing in such a random place!?

Shaleen said...

Wow! That is amazing! I wonder if there are similar remedies for house flies. We can barely open our back door w/o getting one or two in..and they're impossible to swat!

Shaunna said...

Good to know...I might just try it as an experiment and see what happens. :)