The Days of Wine and Flies

Okay, let's face it, caustic chemicals and poisons are bad for any house.

When I found my exterminator putting white powder along my baseboards with two toddlers and a crawler in the house, I kicked him to the curb and took over pest control internally.

 And we started figuring out how to get rid of the stuff we didn't want to live with versus 

giving a cat nerve damage.

So lets discuss fruit flies.

I like wine.

They love wine.

This does not lead to camaraderie and a few laughs. It leads to fishing out swimmers with a spoon.

It leads to spaghetti jar lids made into caps.

And it leads to clouds of unwanted visitors heralding Spring.

It's time they left.

First, locate the breeding ground. We found ours under a marble slab the dog water dish was sitting on.

I thought I was protecting my precious, precious floor.

I'd built a neo-natal unit for vermin.

Now, let's try three different traps.

Oh, and we're going to ignore the traps that do live capture so you can release them outside into the wild.

BECAUSE MY HOUSE IS OPEN AND THEY'LL COME BACK IN.

First trap:

An olive jar
Apple cider vinegar
A sheet of printer paper
Tape

Make a cone with the paper with a small hole at the bottom. Secure with tape.

Pour a little apple cider vinegar in the jar so there's maybe half an inch between the surface and the funnel.

Next, you need:

A salsa jar

Some squishy blueberries

Red wine

Stretchy plastic wrap

A pencil

Put the blueberries in the bottom of the jar and cover them with wine. Weep softly. Stretch the plastic wrap tightly over the mouth.

Poke a few very small holes in the plastic.

Just to be fair, I also put an inch of wine in a glass, then set them all side by side to see what we got.

Warning: dead bugs ahead.

Ready for the nail biting, edge of your seat results?

Cider vinegar: the lesser of the methods. Still effective, 

but not quite the box office draw I'd been lead to believe.

Fruit and wine: they flocked like a free brunch in South Beach.

Wine alone? Let's face it, there's a reason I made drink caps!

However, I'll probably stick with the fruit and wine method.

Why?

Half a dozen wine glasses with remnants sitting around the house might attract DCFS agents.