nyj47: More from the wacky world of home remedies



Uncertain success notwithstanding (see above), I'm back for more. This time, however, my experiment does not result from physical illness on my part, and was actually carried out under semi-controlled circumstances.

You see, as I may have previously mentioned, my roommate and I have been suffering from a bug problem. As if the roaches from the T&A construction site next door weren't enough (yes, that really is their name, and I'll get photos to prove it!), we also have a fruit-fly problem.

Yesterday I decided I had had enough of the pesky critters, now a couple have started drifting around my bedroom (aka the Blog Control Center). So I turned to the trusty Google search in my quest for a cheap, effective way to kill 'em off (unlike Kennedy Jr. who may simply torch the place).

The first two hits that came up both recommended vinegar. And the second site had a variety of suggestions about how this basic kitchen staple might be used for effective extermination.

Method #1: Put apple-cider vinegar in a small bowl, cover it with plastic wrap and poke pin holes in the cover. The bugs will be attracted to the vinegar, fly into the bowl, but be unable to escape and consequently drown.

Method #2: Put 2 teaspoons of vinegar, 1 teaspoon of sugar, and a few drops of dish soap in a shallow dish. Add water and place in an area where the bugs congregate (they're attracted to light and tend to thrive in moist regions conducive to fungus growth).

We aren't growing any mushrooms that I'm aware of, but the bugs seem to like the kitchen. Despite my skepticism, I poured out the last of my apple cider vinegar, added sugar, dish soap and water and set the flat container in the vicinity of my espresso maker. How something as harmless as dish soap could be lethal to fruit flies, I didn't know, but I was prepared to try. After all, borax supposedly kills cockroaches ... something about the detergent.

Since I didn't have enough vinegar to try Method #1, I improvised a Method #3: a little orange juice and champagne in a bowl I covered with saran wrap I then punctured with a fork.

Based on yesterday's kitchen trials I conclude the following: Forks are clearly not the implement of choice in creating pinholes. Turns out the flies are quite adept at climbing back out again — I watched 'em do it, the little buggers. I was right that the mimosa would attract them but alas, no booze-related drownings (yet). Method #1 (once I bought more vinegar) proved equally ineffective in that I was still making holes with a fork. Method #2, however, has been like gold. As of yesterday I think more than 40 flies had drowned. I tried setting another bowl of the same mixture out, but it doesn't seem to be quite as effective. Maybe I got the ratio off? Or maybe there's just magic about the container.

I dunno, but it proves that, judging from the quantity of flies still flitting around the kitchen, and now lining the bottom of my death trap, we had more of a swarm than I realized. :-o

However, progress has been made in preventing the growth of the swarm (I hear a single female can lay up to 300 eggs!!!). Today I discovered that there's a reason our phallic-shaped garbage can sometimes seemed to emit the warmth of an informal compost pile: it really was hatching something. I'm not sure how, but some sort of moisture-producing chemical change was going on inside our garbage bags — hence the all-important moist climate fruit flies flock to.

Today's project (in addition to drowning more bugs) is thoroughly bleaching and Simple Greening the garbage can. I think I may have eliminated several bug-larvae.

I tell ya, some days I really do feel like my father, with his cricket-trap obsession during our days in Phoenix (the late-night chirping used to make him so crazy he'd set up little cups of water near the areas he was convinced they were hiding, in hopes they'd miraculously drown; I think all of one met their demise this way). Come to think of it, drowning things is a long-standing tradition in our family. My first smell of beer (since we were tea-totallers most of my youth) came from an improvised slug trap my parents were setting up in our Everett, Washington garden. Somehow this involved letting beer go flat and then pouring it into a modified 2-liter bottle. No word on the death count from that measure.

And then there's my grandpa's treatment for moles ... But that involved fire as well as pouring gasoline or diesel down the holes they made in his driving range.

Such a pioneering clan, aren't we? :D

posted @ 08:19 PM on Mon - August 23, 2004 remark! Email |  as quoted:
before I said ...  but more recently: 

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