Flies! Everywhere Flies!

[Fiver]

I need help, folks. My kitchen has become infested by some kind of flying insect. They're tiny, about gnat-sized, and I assume they're some kind of fly...Drosophila melanogaster, perhaps, although I've never seen D. melanogaster outside a lab.

I don't know where they come from, but I see a couple near the sink every time I'm near it. If I'm blending something, several will gather near the blender. If I drink a beer or glass of milk and wait even five minutes before rinsing out the glass, two dozen or more will gather on the rim or fly down inside.

It's driving me crazy! Swatting them as I see them obviously isn't a solution, and spray poison isn't helping much either. I've tried "trapping" them by deliberately leaving out some food or drink, letting them gather, and then spraying the shit out of them, but apparently that never gets them all. I think they must be breeding; there were more yesterday than I've ever seen before.

My specific General Questions:

1. Where did they come from? I'm moderatly tidy in the kitchen, and anyway I've lived in the house for two years and haven't changed my habits, but the flies didn't show up until a couple months ago.

2. How do I get rid of them? I'm thinking bug bomb, but I have three cats so don't want to risk collateral damage. Would they be safe from a bomb if I sealed them (and food/water dishes) in my bedroom (I haven't seen the bugs beyond the kitchen or dining room)? Will they be all right going back out into the bombed environment afterwards?

3. Am I a shameful slob, or can this happen to anybody?

[Scylla]

Do you have bananas or other fruit ripening somewhere other than in the refrigerator?

[Liberal]

I disagree.

[Gaudere]

[Moderator Hat ON]

Moving this General Question to the General Question forum.

[Moderator Hat OFF]

Padding your post count, Lib? Remember, it's not the size of your post count, it's what you do with 'em. ;)

[cher3]

Sound like fruit flies to me. A bug bomb sounds pretty drastic. As someone mentioned before, they may have come in and bred on some fruit you had around. As long as you don't continue to provide accessible food for them, they should die off in a few days.

[Fiver]

Gaudere:
[Moderator Hat ON]

Moving this General Question to the General Question forum.

[Moderator Hat OFF]

Whoops. I thought GQ was where I posted the question! Sorry, Gaudere. You may beat me for my infraction. In fact, I encourage it.

[Fiver]

cher3:
Sound like fruit flies to me. A bug bomb sounds pretty drastic. As someone mentioned before, they may have come in and bred on some fruit you had around. As long as you don't continue to provide accessible food for them, they should die off in a few days.

Hmmm. Yes, I did have some bananas out on the counter for a while. But isn't this accepted practice? They sell banana "trees" to hang bunches from, anyway. But the bananas are now peeled and in the freezer.

How many days should the die-off take? There's some urgency here, because I'm having a party on Friday. I'm thinking my guests may be put off by flies hovering over the dip.

[cher3]

Well, I searched around a bit and found that they are actually a bit hardier than I thought (they live about 60 days, reproducing all the time.)

Here's a link responding to a question from someone who also had an infestation:

http://www.victorpest.com/disc/_disc1/0000009c.htm

[Wonko The Sane]

DAVEW0071 where are you???

[jjason]

you are already infested with these guys you are not a slob they probably came with some bananas and they live and multiply in drains commonly in the kitchen sink the best sucess i found was with a product called bactrol it is one of the chemicals you add to your drains to "eat" the bacteria in the drain lines besides doing that job it also gets rid of the drain flies

[Punoqllads]

Originally posted by Five
1. Where did they come from? I'm moderatly tidy in the kitchen, and anyway I've lived in the house for two years and haven't changed my habits, but the flies didn't show up until a couple months ago.

2. How do I get rid of them? I'm thinking bug bomb, but I have three cats so don't want to risk collateral damage. Would they be safe from a bomb if I sealed them (and food/water dishes) in my bedroom (I haven't seen the bugs beyond the kitchen or dining room)? Will they be all right going back out into the bombed environment afterwards?

3. Am I a shameful slob, or can this happen to anybody?

I've seen something like this two times before. In both cases, it was caused by some kind of spilled food that hadn't been cleaned up. Multiple bug bombs didn't help for more than a day or three. In one case, the food source was a banana that had fallen off a shelf and gotten behind the refrigerator, in the other it was a bag of apples in a cabinet that had been put behind a bunch of sundries and forgotten.

I'm pretty sure that the flies bugging you (n.p.i.) have found some food source and are multiplying there. If you can find that source, and throw it away, along with the maggots infesting it, your fly problem should dissipate within a few days. Go on a bug hunt in the kitchen, emptying cabinets, looking inside for maggots, and inspecting all items before placing them back in the cabinet. Look for food boxes or plastic bags with holes in them, cans with dents in them, etc.

Oh, and you're not a slob. Both of these households each had neat-freaks inhabiting them. If it happened to them, it can happen to anyone.

[chique]

The Food section of the Washington Post had an article about these tiny flies a few months ago. The author went to a HomeEc professor (they don't call it that anymore, do they?) at U of Maryland and was told to clean EVERYTHING with a bleach solution. Walls, shelves, drawers, dishes. EVERYTHING. Also to throw out anything and everything in bags and boxes, whether they were opened or not - flour, rice, beans, ceareal, oatmeal, coffee, sugar. This gets rid of the places the larvae hang out.

Then bug bomb the place, to kill the adults.

Yeah, I know it sounds drastic, but it was the only thing the author tried that actually worked for longer than a couple of days.

[Wonko The Sane]

If you suspect the drain, pour some bleach down there. I killed some off that way when I saw them coming out of the drain.

[Myron Van Horowitzski]

Could be fungus gnats. Those are the things most people think of as "fruit flies."

Five, do you have any houseplants? Fungus gnats lay their eggs in soil. Spray the surface of the soil regularly with insecticidal soap.

Also, very effective: every time you go to your kitchen, make a habit of swatting every one you see. Keep this up long enough and you'll get rid of them...until the next pregnant female flies in the door behind you.

[Fiver]

Myron Van Horowitzski:
Five, do you have any houseplants? Fungus gnats lay their eggs in soil. Spray the surface of the soil regularly with insecticidal soap.

Nope, no houseplants. I have a black thumb; I once killed a cactus through neglect.

Which makes this fly thing even more irritating. Why can't we ignore pests to death too?

Also, very effective: every time you go to your kitchen, make a habit of swatting every one you see.

Yes, I've been doing that. I also hung a no-pest strip over the kitchen sink last night, and it had nabbed 50 or more of the monsters as of this morning.

I also put a plateful of soapy water on the counter with a piece of banana and an apricot in it. It's not working as well as the strip, but it has attracted and drowned a dozen or so.

I still feel like I'm treating the symptoms instead of the problem. But I will try the bleach-down-the-drain idea you suggested, Myron. Thank you.

Keep this up long enough and you'll get rid of them...until the next pregnant female flies in the door behind you.

Thanks a lot.

[jjason]

bleach is not your answer what you need to do is to take away their home i.e. the drain by some of the enzmye cleaner like i mentioned bactrol or maybe enzyme d it will take two to three days to notice a difference since you may not believe it but their are millions of them

[Fiver]

jjason:
bleach is not your answer what you need to do is to take away their home i.e. the drain by some of the enzmye cleaner like i mentioned bactrol or maybe enzyme d it will take two to three days to notice a difference since you may not believe it but their are millions of them

I believe there are millions of them, and I appreciate your advice, jjason, but I'm not so sure they're coming from the drain. I stoppered it last night but there were still new ones this morning.

I looked for Bactrol at Home Depot last night. I looked in both the pest control and the plumbing sections, and it was neither place. And the Home Depot employees hadn't heard of it.

[jjason]

look for a liquid enzmye check at or call a food service company they will no what i mean it is cheap $8.99 for a concentrated quart it will be more than enough

[Wood Thrush]

Contact an expert. It is both foolhardy and dangerous to play around with chemicals you do not understand on the basis of what people on a message board say. Have a professional exterminator come over and take a look.

[jb_farley]

look in your lazy susan. is there a really old bag of potatoes in there? yup, they should be actually less of a potato shape than a brown goopy liquid. throw the bag right out, in your outside trashcan. but make sure you remember to put the lockable lid back on, cuz the racoons will wind up spilling the potato slop all over your patio in an effort to find the chicken bones in the can.

at least, that's what worked for me.

[Fiver]

I got home last night and found several dozen flies stuck to the pest strip hanging over the kitchen sink and maybe 20 in the dish with the soapy water, piece of banana and apricot. Only one or two were still flying around, and I killed them.

Then I cleaned my counter again. I didn't just put the bag of potatoes (fresh potatoes, jb_farley) in the fridge, I also disposed of/put away the empty plastic gallon jugs, wild rice recipes, rice cooker, frying pan and pet wallaby that were also hanging out on said counter.

Then I emptied the dish and put it in the dishwasher, scrubbed the sink again, and poured a few ounces of bleach, straight up, into the sink drain.

Finally, I took an orange out of the refrigerator and set it on the sink, then went to check email, sort socks, read a novel. Many minutes later I went back to the kitchen. Where, two nights ago, the orange would've been covered in flies, now there were none.

I looked again this morning. Still no living flies.

Is the problem solved? Or is the smell of the bleach just keeping them at bay? I'd like to think the former, but life has made me skeptical.

But if I can just get past my party on Friday, that's all I'm asking for in a solution. After Friday, Wood Thrush, I promise I'll call an exterminator and do the job properly.

[DAVEW0071]

DAVEW0071 where are you???

I'm right here. I was on vacation for a while, and then so busy at work the past week catching up on the work I missed over vacation, I haven't really had a chance to get on the Board.

<ahem>

They were probably fruit flies. I can't really tell without seeing them, but the behavior described sounds like fruit flies rather than drain flies.

Well, looks like the problem was solved without me. {sniff} I thought I was really needed around here.