I love when homemade solutions to a problem work better than the commercial answers, especially when the former is a mere fraction of the cost. Thus was the case when the late summer harvest brought a tiny menace to my doorstep.
In August with garden produce in full swing and the heat at its peak, several of Mother Nature’s most pesky of creatures usually find their way into our homes. I’m talking about the nuisance bane of all things fruit and veg, the fruit fly. Gnats, no-see-ums, vinegar flies, Drosophila melanogaster, or whatever similar itty-bitty flying bug calls your neighbourhood home, they will drive you nuts if given the chance. They’re so tiny and nimble that a traditional swatter doesn’t really work very well unless you’re a Kung Fu master.
Up here where winters are delightfully long and the cold inside and out can kill off generations for the rest of the year I manage to keep the little blighters at bay from the start of the year and right through the majority of summer. Eventually though an errant banana or forgotten cabbage sneaks a pair (or a hundred!) into the home net. Two of them fall in love and decide to make the kitchen and pantry their new luxury apartment and then you’re stuck with them for the rest of the year unless you intervene to stop their family planning. Unchecked adults can live up to an astounding ninety days in optimal fly conditions which I suspect is an eternity in bug time. Mrs. Fly can get her egg on up to five hundred times in that lifespan so you’ve got to do something quick if you want them out of your house.
I shy away from the toxic sprays when possible, especially indoors since I treasure not only my own lungs but the more fragile lungs of my furry girls. That had me looking at the local home centre for alternatives. Imagine my surprise when the cheapest gizmo they sold for the task was eight bucks plus that much again for the special ‘lures’ that needed replacing every few days according to the package. Back on the store shelf those went, at least until I could do a bit of amateur exterminator research. I was able to grab good old-fashioned sticky fly ribbon traps for about a quarter each. They work reasonably well if your pests are collected in one place, say over a garbage bin or next to the onions in your dry pantry, but bugs don’t seem to just randomly fly into the tape of their own accord very often. Not wanting to look like some sort of deranged decorator with dozens of the things dangling all over the house I decided to keep looking.
I have to say here that I’m a big fan of nature. Organic and permaculture is my preferred choice most often and I think people in general are a bit too quick to label every crawling or flying beastie as a pest. My penchant for beekeeping also makes me cringe at the thought of indiscriminate bug genocide on any scale larger than a fly swatter. I’ve seen far too many beehives collapse because of an errant road worker spraying some mutant DDT chemical derivative indiscriminately on the bush even miles up the road.
But I’m not talking about the garden or farm here, I’m talking about my indoor living space. My food storage. Last year one of the tiny kamikazes even decided to die behind my computer screen leaving an irritating dot right in the middle of my view. If you ever want to torture a writer slowly, that’s a way to ensure they go more mental minute by minute. With apologies to Mother Nature, indoors the fruit flies must go.
Homespun solutions to these sorts of problems often don’t work well – sometimes not at all – but that’s not the case here. As with most natural remedies you have to turn instinct to your advantage and as it happens, apple cider vinegar is irresistible to fruit flies. Even a tiny amount will attract them from all over your house guaranteed. They’ll work like mad to get into your trap and when they hit the soap solution and get stuck they’re finished. Sometimes they’ll buzz around inside for a while and try to escape before they meet their doom but a quick shake of the cup as you pass by can put an end to that in a hurry. Goodbye tiny menace.
This dead simple solution costs pennies and works like a charm. Make a few while you’re at it and place them strategically around your problem areas (and out of reach of curious pets). When it has done it’s job or becomes full of buzz, just toss out the mess and make make more as needed. For me the problem was cured in just a day or two. The earlier you start on your campaign against the tiny flying monsters, the easier it is to win the pest war.
Chemical Free Fruit Fly Trap (for a nickel each!)
Take an ordinary plastic cup, the sort you bought for your last kitchen party in sleeves of a hundred for less than a buck or two. Into the cup put a few drops of dish detergent and about an inch of apple cider vinegar. Stir it together well and seal it closed with plastic wrap. Secure that wrap further with a rubber band around the top of the cup to pull the wrap very taught. Make a dozen or so tiny holes in the stretched wrap using a toothpick quickly inserted straight down and up. These will allow the lure aroma to escape driving the bugs into a feeding frenzy but they aren’t quite large enough for most flies to pass through easily.
Next make a smaller number of holes with the toothpick ‘and a wiggle’, those slightly larger holes will encourage the flies in but you don’t want so many of the larger openings that they can escape. Experiment with your own local version of the beasts but if your trap hasn’t caught anything in twenty-four hours or they just seem to collect on the outside of the plastic wrap, try opening the holes slightly wider.
Discard when the menace is contained. They don’t seem to be smart enough to see their fellows trapped inside and keep going in but the occasional refresh of the cider or a new trap keeps your eradication efforts at peak efficiency.
