A word on fruit flies

UGH! That's my word. I've been battling them for 2 weeks. Rather unsuccessfully I might add. Every time I opened my pantry they would swarm up off the bread box or where ever they've landed. I've been vacuuming them up as it seemed the only way to rid myself of the little buggers.

I got rid of the bananas I thought were harboring them. Bought fresh bananas and stored them in a Ziploc bag. Dumped & bleached our scrap bucket (all scrap food goes to the chickens). Cleaned the kitchen. All to no avail.

Yesterday I dropped a bag of microwave popcorn on the floor of the pantry. When I picked it up I discovered a plastic produce bag on the floor under my step stool I store there. In the bag was what I can only describe as the rotted corpse of a banana. It was black. There was no "fruit" left in the peel. There were fruit flies trapped in the plastic. It was revolting. How did it not smell? Really, I smelled nothing.

I gingerly picked the bag up & deposited it directly in the garbage outside. And yet I still have fruit flies. Today I will scour my kitchen (yet again) and try out a home made fruit fly trap. I googled "getting rid of fruit flies" and found a few suggestions. One was taking cider vinegar, putting it in a cup, making a paper funnel that would cover the entire top of the cup, & letting it all set until the flies all drown in the vinegar. I have no cider vinegar. Another suggest adding a few drops of dish liquid to the vinegar. It does something to the surface tension making it impossible for the flies to escape the liquid.

I combined methods & improvised. There is now a large apple sauce jar with a paper funnel on my counter. There was about 3 Tbs. of sauce left & I couldn't get to it, so I added a cup of water, mixed it up, added the dish detergent & the funnel. We'll see how it goes. I think the vinegar may work better as it's smell is stronger. But I'll give this a try.