# I do catch flies with vinegar

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-do-catch-flies-with-vinegar/61044>\
**Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\
**Created:** [April 6, 2001, 9:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-do-catch-flies-with-vinegar/61044 "2001-04-06T09:51:32Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![nthomas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ed8c4c/32.png) [@nthomas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nthomas)\
**Post date:** [April 6, 2001, 9:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-do-catch-flies-with-vinegar/61044/1 "2001-04-06T09:51:32Z")

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At [http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mflyhoney.html](http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mflyhoney.html) SDSTAFF Doug wrote:

> [@](#):
>
> Of course, the version I’m most familiar with involves vinegar, and that doesn’t draw flies at all.

In southern California, I have discovered, you **do** catch flies with vinegar! Whether you get as many as you would with syrup or shit, I couldn’t say, but I have repeatedly discovered small flies drowned in the vinegar bottle, apparently having got in through the tiny hole in the top where you shake the stuff out. I have had to take to making a little cap out of aluminum foil to sit on top of the shaker to keep them out. This seems to work, but if the little cap gets forgotten, they are soon back. We are not particularly infested with flies around here, and the bottle is usually kept in the closet, too, so the little critters must be quite determined. Perhaps it happens because the “ordinary” vinegar which I use here in California is cider vinegar, rather than the malt vinegar which I was used to in England where I grew up, and which I never remember accumulating flies. Or perhaps they are just a particularly perverse local species (anti-proverb flies).

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**Author:** ![kniz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c37758/32.png) [@kniz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kniz)\
**Post date:** [April 15, 2001, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-do-catch-flies-with-vinegar/61044/2 "2001-04-15T22:30:58Z")

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My wife tells the about how much she loved her father and believed everything he told her. She says that she spent two or three days trying to catch a bird by sprinkling salt on its tail. She never caught one. This seems to go along with your findings with the vinegar (i.e. It may be true to some degree, but not always reliable in everyday life). I feel the same about “A penny saved is a penny earned”. You should try and save as much as possible, but you better get out there and earn some or else you won’t have any to save.