Nothing Like a Fruit Fly Up Your Nose

Is it fruit fly season? If so or if not, they have invaded my home. They are such annoying bugs. They have no fear of humans, they fly up your nose, and they are too small to swat and kill. It also seems that if you have one, you have seven thousand of them.

We are told growing up that fruit flies appear when you have over ripe fruit in your house. This is not entirely true. Apparently fruit flies lay their eggs on fruit (or really any food) and when you buy a bunch of bananas at the store, you may be buying fruit with fruit fly eggs on it. They are too small to see, so it's not really the fault of the store. (Or is it? Once in a while, Shop Rite sells their bananas in bags. I bought a bunch of bagged bananas a couple of weeks ago and I believe the fruit flies came from these bunches of bananas. Could they have possibly known and bagged the bananas up in an attempt to keep the fruit flies from getting on the other produce? Conspiracy theory anyone?).

In trying to get rid of the fruit flies, I have been extra careful with not leaving food out, and although I have been extra careful, my children have not. I have also been doing the dishes more so nothing's in the sink, and I have even thrown away what seemed like perfectly good bananas because they were covered in fruit flies. I am not willing to spray bug killer products with the skull and crossbones on the bottle all over my kitchen, so I looked for another method of getting rid of the flies.

Good old google led me to this contraption:

(sorry for the fuzzy picture, and for the not entirely clear vase)

1. Put a piece of fruit at the bottom of a vase or large glass (bananas seem to be their favorite).

2. Make a paper funnel and place it in the vase. Make sure the hole at the bottom of the funnel is not too big (think dime or nickel size), and give a few inches between the banana and the bottom of the funnel.

3. To make sure there are no gaps between the paper and the inside edges of the vase (so the little buggers can't escape) I folded the funnel over the top of the vase and taped it down.

4. Place it on the countertop in the area where you saw the most fruit flies. The flies will travel down the funnel to get to the banana. When they are done with their snack, they will fly up to get out but will be trapped. Most likely, they will not figure out that they have to go back out the way they came in.

The first time I did this, it worked very well. Overnight it seemed I had caught all the fruit flies. The problem was disposing of them. They were still alive, so when I took the funnel out, they just flew away. So sorry world, I did not rid you of fruit flies, I just rid my house of them.

The next day I saw a few lingering flies, so I set up the contraption again, this time with an apple core. I caught a bunch, but slowly this time. Then, today, I've deduced that the first batch of flies' babies must have hatched because I had a ton again. I set up the contraption again with a banana this time and within a few hours, I have caught a swarm.

Hopefully soon I will be rid of them for good!!!