Fruit-Flies. My arch nemesis.

I don't know about you guys, but in my house, I have a lot of fruit. I mean, it's summer time and the fruit is abundant! Yummy, juicy, delicious FRUIT!! Ah, I just eat it up I love it so. Okay, so I said all of that to say this: You know what comes with all that glorious fruit in your house? Fruit flies. Aka the scum of the earth. The dirtiest of beings. The smallest, biggest problem in my home throughout the summer months. Just, ew! Fruit flies are highly frowned upon in this establishment. I really don't understand their purpose at all, but I'm not gonna start asking God silly things like that...I'm just gonna lead them to temptation, and then their demise.

I've seen a few suggestions on ways to attract and ultimately murder fruit flies. All of them are pretty simple, so one day I got so fed up with the little demons that I thought, "Tis time! Let the scheming  begin!" I was dead serious, too. I think I used a British accent in my mind (and possibly out loud as well.) My plan was to try 3 different methods and see which one worked best. And since I had a small colony of the little buggers, I thought I might as well give it my all in an attempt to wipe out the whole population. Muahaha!!

The three methods that I chose to use are as follows:

Phone photography is terrible. Breaking out the Nikon ASAP.

1. The "beer and plastic wrap" method. For this experiment, you take a small container fill it about half way full with a fruity-ish beer and then add a bit of dish soap and swirl it around. Cover the container tightly with plastic wrap and then take a toothpick and poke a couple of holes in it, just big enough so that the tiny vermin can get in and get trapped! Apparently, these things are incredibly dense, and they can find their way into this mixture but they can't find their way out. Works for me! 
2. The "white wine vinegar and dish soap" method. This is pretty much the same as the beer method, just with vinegar. According to Google, fruit flies are attracted to fermented fruits (or fruits that are in the process of being over-ripe.) So beer and vinegar (even wine) are good liquids to use for fruit fly booby traps, because fermentation. You follow the same process as the first method: fill it a little over half full, add some dish soap, and a splash of water, and then cover it with plastic wrap and poke holes. Little dummies, I can't believe they can't figure their way out of this. 
3. The "non-stick spray and a paper plate" method. This one seemed odd, and I didn't have very much confidence in it, but for kicks and giggles, I tried it. So, what you do is take a paper plate and spray it with non-stick oven spray. You go over to the landing zone of the flies and get them all stirred up and flying around. Then, when they least expect it, you take the plate with the spray and start waving it in the area. The flies stick and they can't fly away. Boom! I did this one as I was moving the fruit around in my container that sits on my counter, and I actually landed a few hits! I assured myself that the survivors would be lured in by my other two methods, so I let them escape. 

At the end of the day, the winner is...White Wine Vinegar. There was seriously no comparison! The beer mix had 2 flies in it, though so it wasn't a complete failure. But the vinegar mix had TEN flies in it. TEN!!! I did a fantastic happy dance. I tried to whip, and hurt my nae nae. I'm so glad that I know what to do at the first sign of these critters from now on! All hail vinegar!! ;-) 

Oh, I also left the two containers out over night after I took this photo, and the next day the total count was Beer: 5 Vinegar:14!!!!! I'd love to know any tricks you guys have tried too!! 

All my love, 

Paige xo