August 20, 2011

Well, its that time of year again.  House flies are beginning their sleepy descent into fall, inciting them to buzz in an ‘up close and personal’ manner that can be infuriating to say the least. Not sure what the correlation is here (weather, season, quality of produce) but the fruit flies (my scientist-friends refer to them as Drosophila and they are used as a model organism in genetics) have also descended en masse as well…in our house anyway.

My friend Tammy dropped by this morning for coffee (I missed her birthday while I was on holidays and we planned a belated celebration over coffee and Tammy’s yummy home-made scones). She mentioned her battles with the fruit flies in her own home.  She had even resorted to hanging tendrils of sticky fly paper (like Grandma used to) in her kitchen to capture what I now call those “…crafty sons-of-a-b#tch!” (a la Norman from “On Golden Pond”).  Impressed with her fortitude and feeling happy that I didn’t have to deal with that many myself… I went over and casually shook my fruit bowl.

It was like a scene from Hitchcock’s “The Birds”.  Good grief.  Who knew that this benign mound of fruit could hide such a profusion of those nasty little buggers!

Tammy giggled.  Then she shared a great little trick that would help me rid myself of those “…crafty sons-of-a-b#tch!”

Pour apple cider vinegar into a container and cover it tightly with Saran or other plastic wrap.  Poke holes in the plastic.  The fruit flies are attracted to the odor of the cider-vinegar and will creep into the holes but can’t seem to crawl out again (hmmmm… maybe not so crafty!?!?!).  They will eventually drown in the apple cider vinegar.  

For my ‘remedy’, I used a wine glass. Tammy thought that it might ‘class’ things up a bit (the wine charm you see in the photo is merely a leftover tidbit from last year’s Christmas celebration and not required as part of the extermination protocol *wink*).

As you can see in figure two, there are three “…crafty sons-of-a-b#tch…” that have met their demise in the vinegary vat of hell. Muhahaha!!! <evil laugh> Any scientists out there need some specimens? 

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