This has been a great year for fruits and vegetables in my diet. I've probably reached the point where I eat about 4-6 servings a day, with my faves being apples, bananas and peas. Not only is my body surging with essential vitamins and minerals like never before, but I am also learning a lot about gnats.
Gnats are too small to have noses, but they somehow have a keen sense of where fruit is sitting. One of their favorite pastimes is to walk around on banana skins and make them look gross. They also like to hide in garbage cans where discarded apple cores are, and leap out like a tiny insect fiesta whenever the lid is opened. I estimate their top speed at about 2 miles per hour, but they have insane lateral quickness that render them impossible to squash with human hands a hundred times their size. That last fact amazes me the most, because I've become a master of inadvertently swallowing bugs while running on the trail. Why can't those bugs be the ones in my kitchen?
Lately I've taken to encasing my fruit (and fruit-trash) in plastic sandwich bags to keep the little ones at bay. I would love to hear other strategies.
2 comments:
Probably not gnats but fruit flies...and anytime fruit is left out on your counter for any length of time, you will encounter them (or if you have fruit peelings in your sink or any other fruit or vegetable related residue). I don't know of a way to get rid of them but only how to protect fruit from them...unless you can eat it fast enough to keep the fruit flies at bay. Or you can do the European thing which is to stop at the grocery store each day on your way home from work to only pick up the food you need for that evening's meal and go refrigerator-less;-)
As luck would have it I do have a few tricks to fight the fruit flies you described. This is all from first hand experience, battling them in my apt.
I would like to first point out that the gnats dont appear out of thin air, they have to be transplanted into your home some how.
That said, be careful what you bring inside, this includes soil from your garden if you are keeping an indoor plant.
Another curious note I would like to add is my experience with McDonald's beverages. Actually, I found your blog simply by googling "mcdonald gnats" to see if anyone else had noticed what I'm about to reveal.
I'm not proud to admit this but I have gone through periods of extreme laziness...to the point where I've had several coke cans, glasses and dishes of the like scattered around. Aside from coming up with a few clever ways of dealing with the flies, as their numbers begin to grow, I believe I may have stumbled upon a possible source.
This may sound kind of crazy, and I admit from everything I've told you so far you have every reason to believe I am, but you can test it yourself. It seems that when you leave any fountain beverage or orange juice plastic cup from mcdonald laying out, assuming there is fluid still left, it will rapidly start to grow mold and then the flies hatch. Where are the flies coming from though? I strongly believe that Mcdonalds has a serious problem with their beverage delivery systems and that they are spreading the eggs of these flies everywhere in the beverages they sell. I have tried leaving out beverages from other fast food chains out and they too grow the mold, but do not spawn the flies. It's very disturbing I know, but feel free to test for yourself.
As far as removal methods. All you can really do is fight, their eggs are so tiny they might as well be invisible. you can use bleach on any suspect spawning pool. For the adults... they like to gang up and well.. you know... I have found that they especially like the spell of any particular alcohol or vinegar. Put out a bunch of plastic bottles with either substance 1/4 filled... and pour vegetable oil on the mouth piece and into the upper portion of the bottle. The flies fly into the bottle neck, or land on it and either fall in the fluid and die or get stuck in the oil and die.
Another thing you can do - and I might add a much more entertaining method of removal - is create a fireball gun to chase them around with. Theyre quite simple to make, get a hand held blow torch and cut the bottom off a thick plastic water bottle. Stick the torch nozel end into the water bottle neck and fill the cavity with gas, then spark the igniter on the torch...poof a ball of flames should go shooting out the bottom of the plastic bottle...dont forget to hold on to the bottle or else itll go flying out of your hand, oh and id keep the thing away from your face just in case ;)
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