rm -rf all the fruit flies in my kitchen
 

I have recently become a composter and have dramatically reduced my garbage output by about 40%. All kitchen waste goes into "container a" by the sink until this container is full. The contents of "container a" are then moved to "container b" outside my back door. Once "container b" is full, I transfer all of the contents to my garden-based compost bin ("container c")....unfortunately, I have now got a fruit fly infestation in my kitchen. Earlier, I counted 372 of them. This count was wholly inaccurate because the bloody things kept moving and all fruit flies look alike to me. As I type, these fruit flies are on my monitor screen, in my wine and virtually under my eyelids. I am not happy. I am trying to cook pasta and bake bread but keep getting interrupted by flickering wings. What am I to do? This is the WORST INFESTATION I have ever encountered. And I mean THE WORST. Last year I fought *snails* and won.
What I have done so far
1 "container a" no longer exists
2 I spent 92 minutes hoovering up fruit flies - very satisfying. Pity you can't eat them!
3 "container b" is now empty and clean.
4 I filled "container c" with water. This was ineffective but it made me feel good. It did take about 40 minutes and this meant that I had to neglect my children. My partner is unhappy <<she blames me for the fruit flies.

All I want is a solution. Do you own any fruit fly infestations? How do you control them? I really need help. Clearly, composting is a way of life.

I have heard that U238 is quite effective against Fruit Flies... If you can optain a small sample, leave it in your kitchen and evacuate... This should kill them quickly but you will not be able to return home until:

4.51e9 years

KC

beer. leave it in a bowl somewhere, they are attracted to it, then they drink, can't fly, then either die, or drown in it.

There is a device which we use here in India called "Pest-o-Flash" (this is just a brand name. I'm not aware of the generic name for this). It uses UV light tubes in a box (the device is wall-mounted) which attracts insects and flies in particular and kills them with electricity.

Very effective in large dining rooms and especially in public dining rooms.

type xkill at the command line and remove the flies......

Seriously,

In these parts we are able to buy a high voltage "tennis racket" that is commonly used to "zap" those pesky flies, it is both effective, highly satisfying and good for children if you have neighbours kids who are at a loose end....

The sweet sticky substance away from the kitchen may help if high voltage rackets are unavaliable:p

Or wait for winter......

We had a similar problem with blow-flies. The solution I came up with was to eliminate the container outside your back door, and empty the container from your kitchen straight into the compost bin in your yard. If you do this every day, you shouldn't have a problem.

To kill the fruit flies, normal fly-spray such as Mortein should do the trick. Just cover up any pets, and food.

--Ian

That "flourescent tube in a box" we call a "bug zapper".

As for a fix, just go to your local hardware store and pick up some insect bombs. Leave for teh day, bomb the place, return in the evening and throw away the bombshells and clean up the dead flies.

Actually fruit flies don't live very long, so as long as they don't have some place to lay eggs (like a garbage pail or open containers of food), they'll die out in a couple of days without any other intervention. But I do feel your pain. I used to work in a lab next to one that did fruit fly research and those critters get EVERYWHERE.

I always put a small amount of red wine into a shallow dish, covered it with plastic wrap, and then poked a hole into it. It works, trust me, works on gnat's and other small flying pests as well.

Also besides your garbage disposals, if you have house plants, they make perfect breeding grounds as well, either repot them and spray with insecticide that is plant friendly and preferrably environmentally safe or get rid of the plants in whole.

"I have recently become a composter and have dramatically reduced my garbage output by about 40%. All kitchen waste goes into "container a" by the sink until this container is full. The contents of "container a" are then moved to "container b" outside my back door. Once "container b" is full, I transfer all of the contents to my garden-based compost bin ("container c")....unfortunately, I have now got a fruit fly infestation in my kitchen. Earlier, I counted 372 of them. This count was wholly inaccurate because the bloody things kept moving and all fruit flies look alike to me. As I type, these fruit flies are on my monitor screen, in my wine and virtually under my eyelids. I am not happy. I am trying to cook pasta and bake bread but keep getting interrupted by flickering wings. What am I to do? This is the WORST INFESTATION I have ever encountered. And I mean THE WORST. Last year I fought *snails* and won."

I think that your composting method is overly complicated. I used compost as fertilizer for years. My method was to simply bury the garbage in the garden.

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Steve Stites

The answer was a good dosing of chemicals. Now I just have to pick up the bodies. Thanks.