To our great consternation, Josh and I discovered that this apartment seems to attract hordes of pesky little fruit flies. Even after taking out the trash and cleaning extensively, the flies still congregate in the kitchen and bathroom, so a few days ago we set out to annihilate them :) I remembered reading about using Apple Cider Vinegar (ACV) to catch flies, so I constructed a mini-science project to test this theory. Lessons learned:
1. Use pure ACV, it attracts far more flies than diluted ACV.
2. Be patient. The traps will attract flies almost immediately, but you may have to wait a while for the flies to actually enter the trap before you can celebrate their capture.
3. The two methods we used worked equally well. The first method is to pour a little ACV into a glass, then cover it with saran wrap and use a fork to poke holes in the plastic wrap. The flies will crawl in but not be able to crawl out. The second method is to pour some ACV into a glass, then cut a small hole in the center of a coffee filter and fit it nicely into a glass. Again, the flies will crawl in but don't seem to be able to get out. I don't understand this, but I'm not going to ask questions about it. Both methods are pictured below.
Coffee filter method:
See all the little dead flies in there?!
Saran wrap method (pictures don't adequately show the success of this method, but it did work quite well):
I must admit I was delighted to see so many dead flies gather in our traps. I was also quite proud to witness the superiority of the ACV traps over the store-bought fly paper, which we had put up right next to our traps in the name of scientific experimentation.
Success!
You can also use red wine or balsamic vinegar! also works well.
ReplyDeleteExcellent work! We tried it out today. Unfortunately, we were only able to complete Step 1 before getting bored and sucking them up with the vacuum cleaner. Incidentally, that was way more fun.
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