Fruit flies *twitch*

[telophase]

I'm having a small fruit fly invasion in my apartment. I finally managed to trace it back to a potato that had quietly, without any fuss, died in the cupboard, and got rid of it, but there will be fruit flies hanging about the place, loitering on counters, begging for quarters to buy beer with for a day or two. And then this morning I ate a piece of watermelon and, completely forgetting about the flies, left it on the counter to clear up later. *twitch* I came back a couple of hours later and found the fruit-fly convention going full blast. It's now wrapped up in plastic bags and buried at the bottom of the trash can.

And it's just too damn hot to haul trash bags out to the dumpster, so the bags I've been putting off taking out are all just going to sit here until the sun goes down.

Comments

[rilina.livejournal.com]

I've had a minor complex about fruit flies ever since taking genetics lab in college. We were supposed to painlessly kill the flies in the fly morgue at the end of the various parts of the lab--I forget what chemical was in the morgue--but some of the flies survived the process and they were constantly flying around our heads. Eek.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Yuck. It's making me interpret every last little sensation on my skin as a bug landing on me. :P

[fatuorum.livejournal.com]

We use pandan leaves to keep the fruit flies away in the kitchen, especially when there are bananas around (we don't keep those in the fridge). I'm not too sure if they're available where you are, but leaving a couple of fresh leaves around does the job pretty well.

[rayechu.livejournal.com]

You should be able to zap theme with a can of hairspray if you have some. It'll make their windgs stick together and die.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Hee - I'll have to give that a thought. In my previous apartment I had some toxic bugicide stuff I used on 'em, but I don't dare use it now with the cat here. Mind you, hairspray can't be too incredibly good for her, either, but I think I can give the trash can a shot of it and not get it anywhere else. XD

[the-z.livejournal.com]

Fruit flies are so bothersome. To their credit, if they don't have a ready food supply, they die off pretty quickly. Make sure to cover your drains at night too (especially if you have a garbage disposal). They'll snack on the funk in drains if they don't have any alternative, I've noticed.

I've still got ants wandering around my bathroom -_- I finally set out more traps to get rid of the buggers.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Good idea, thanks. I haven't completley won the Battle of the Bathroom with the ants (well, my ant baits were a year old), but now I only see one every couple of days. I meant to buy more ant baits Friday at the store but forgot.

[miss-maroo.livejournal.com]

i was also going to mention the drains. when i had an invasion of yuckies similar to fruit flies, i eventually traced them back to a tater-gone-wrong. the bug man was eventually called. he told me to draino the drains and (yuck) clean the toilets really, really well. (apparently they were breeding in my roommates bathroom while she was on holiday)

if you can train your cat to catch/eat them, as my cat did, it can make for an entertaining afternoon.

i bet rachel would know what to do!

[telophase.livejournal.com]

It always seems to be the fault of a potato. I had this twice in my previous apartment, and both times it was a new potato - one was in the cupboard and had escaped the bonds of its bag, tolled behind the oatmeal box, and died a horrible death, and the other time I'd left a bag of them sitting on the counter and one somewhere in the middle of the bag died, and none of the others did so it took me a while to figure it out.

My cat thinks she is too good to chase bugs. I keep telling her that it's precisely what I hired her for, but she remains unconvinced.