Everyone, I need your support. There is a terrible thing going on in my home. I've lived at the same place for over a year now, but recently changed roommates. My previous domicile partner was fairly neat, but he was a worthless bum, who refused to pay rent, but actually had the nerve to ask me for money for the cable bill. Now, I got a new roommate, who has a job, and is a nice person. The problem is that we are both fairly messy people. We're not that bad, but we've got this habit of leaving beer bottles and dishes around the house.

One day, I noticed a few gnats flying around in the corner of the room. They seemed to be centered around a cup that, about two weeks previous, had contained cranberry juice. Now it just contained a thick, red liquid with a nice mold skin on top. Being disgusted by this, we quickly threw the cup into the dumpster, hoping to purge it from our memory banks forever. Unfortunately, this would not be possible, as that vile, evil cup left behind a terrible curse.

The next day, I went into the kitchen, to throw a dish upon the ceremonial mound that was collecting in the kitchen sink. As I approached, I noticed the swarm. There were hundreds of the little buggers, it was horrifying. Apperently, when we removed the terrible cup, the fruit flies flew off to find a new home. They came across my sink, which must have seemed like a mecca. Old, slightly decaying food matter, stagnant water, fruit fly heaven, all the way. In that one short day, they had proliferated and multiplied. They were now a force to be reckoned with.

We washed the dishes, so they moved to the trash can. We took out the trash, they found some half-full beer bottles in the living room. We threw them out, and made a desperate, systematic purge of all trash in the house. We thought we had them then. There was no more trash, so there was no more food. We cleaned the grime off the counters. I mopped the floor!

This effort seemed to greatly reduce their numbers (possibly due to the many I trapped inside beer bottles, then threw away), but they still live on. Sometimes they still hover around the sink, even when it's completely empty. If you so much as leave a beer sitting out while you run to the 7-11, you have a colony on your hands by the time you return.

Where do these things come from? How did they get into my lovely home? I've never had bugs in the past! Am I really that much of a slob? More importantly, how do I kill them? I've thought about bug spray, but they seem so distrubted. It would be tough to get them all. Plus, I have a cat, and they hang around my dishes and living room. I dont want poison floating around my house. I need you help, please! The battle rages on, and it's me or them. I think they're winning.

All the produce you buy has little buggy eggs on them. They're invisible. Even if you rinse your apples under the faucet, you're eating bug eggs by the mazillion. Maybe I should give you a nice little line break in which to pause and cope with this information.


Ok. Here's the proof - at the greenhouse where I work, Bill the owner insists on raising worms. They make compost. They live in a long box a lot like a coffin, they're probably playing pinochle in there. Bill feeds them table scraps, mostly fruit and vegetable left-over cut-off bits. I know his wife. I know how scrupulous she is about scrubbing all vegetables under fast water, even if they came from her own garden. Doesn't matter, eggs still there. The How To Grow Worms In a Box book says you should microwave all foodscraps, to sterilize, before feeding them to worms. But who wants to run plate after plate of watermelon rinds thru the microwave? a. time b. smell. So Bill just throws em in. The box seethes with fruit flies. Further reading of Worm Book reveals that said microwaving is specifically to kill said eggs. After being covered in a horrible tickly swarm more than once, I have convinced Bill that microwaving is worth the effort.

That said, there's no way for you to get rid of the ones you have. Impossible to squash and who wants to try to spray them all down. Stop having foody bits anywhere in the open, and starve em out. This includes sink/disposal, must be kept clean, or you'll be sorry.

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