Wednesday, August 13, 2025 Fruit Fly Infestation

When we got back from our time away, we discovered we were not alone in our house. Of course Luna was there to greet us with her urgent and accusative yowlings and meowings. It disappoints her greatly that we don’t just drop everything immediately and focus all our attentions on her, as if unpacking the car and trailer should wait for another hour or day entirely.

But when I did finally sit down and greet her properly, little flies were flitting about like they owned the place. Lots of them. Some investigative research showed that we had mistakenly left some coffee grounds in the compost bucket when we left. I took a peek into it, and seeing hordes of the tiny winged invaders, quickly shut it and took it outside where it sat until somebody cleaned it out. If you have guessed that this “somebody” was not me, you know me well.

Still, we were faced with the remainder of the army in the house. A dim memory surfaced…didn’t my friend Sherri have some sort of liquid trap in her house for just this kind of thing? The Internet came to my rescue once again: 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar with a few drops of dish soap, covered with plastic wrap that has holes in it. It’s been awfully satisfying to look at each day and see more fruit fly carcasses at the bottom. All’s fair in love and war.

We also got a couple store-bought fruit fly traps. They look like inviting little fruit fly hotels, but the fruit flies seem to prefer the homemade trap.

Now you know what to do if the fruit flies invade your house, may it never be.

“All the teeming life with wings are unclean to you;
they shall not be eaten.”
Deuteronomy 14:19

You’ll get no argument from me.

Fruit flies will infiltrate this post in the morning – it must be destroyed.