The Mock Turtle

For about the last 6 weeks, we've had a noticeable number of fruit flies in the house. They're evenly spread around the house, not grouped around anything in particular. It's winter (obviously). There are no strange smells (and we've got concrete floors downstairs, so no basement). I run a tight ship here, so I'm absolutely convinced there's not a secret banana roting down the back of the sofa or something. I clean out the pantry last weekend in any case, and there wasn't a particular concentration of them there.

Any ideas? It's driving me a bit mad. It's not as if it's a plague, but I squish about 5-10 a day. I'm never had them except for in the summer once in a while when a bit of fruit has gone over slightly or I haven't emptied the food bin (but that's more obvious because there will be a concentrated number of them, remove the issue and they disappear again)

I hate to ask but what is your neighbour like?

When I lived in Lincolnshire, my neighbour was a hoarder with boxes ceiling high. We were plagued by flies and they were all coming from her house. (Through the air bricks?). I could wake up to a black curtain of them across my kitchen window.

Fruit lives, fruit flies, it's no surprise...

Ahem, sorry. Could it be something outside the house like your main bins, or neighbours spreading compost, or something? Or something disturbed by your bathroom renovations?

Kitchen sink?

We had them from a rotten banana at home Also at work as well rotten fruit in someone’s locker

I killed them all, you need to fill a glass to the brim with vinegar and soap liquid and bit of water it attracts/ tricks them because they think it’s rotten fruit and veg they go into the glass and DIE!

It is disgusting/ fascinating because they will hover over the glass but it works

You’re meant to put cling film over the top of the glass and poke holes in but you don’t have to do that

My neighbour's are sanitary and haven't recently started accumulating rubbish, so far as I can see, anyway!

Could be the bins, I guess, but mine and the neighbours are together and they're not especially smelly or anything. If it was summer I'd be more convinced they were coming from outside, but...
It was happening before the bathroom was done, so it's not that either.

I have thought about trying to trap them all so I'll try the vinegar and soap liquid at the weekend... and chuck some extra bleach down the sink (thought they don't especially seem to be congregated there either!)

Are the definitely fruit flies? Could they be coming from a plant? We had a mild infestation a while back which I couldn't work out until I discovered there was a hidden pot full of them. :eek:

Good point, shoe.

I did think of that, because I've had fruit flies or things that seem like fruit flies around one of my indoor plants before- but not as far as I can see. I might lob the one or two plants I've got though. They're kind of scrawny anyway

I assumed ours were fruit flies at first because they looked so similar.

I feel bad for your poor plants now, cast aside on my speculation.

Their ancestors will probably track you down and slaughter you for vengeance, Shoe. Don't turn your back on anything green.

I'll say SHOE TOLD ME TO DO IT in a menacing voice as I chuck them in the bin.

Hello Vag, you massive twat.

We had a mystery fly/gnat issue in the kitchen once which turned out to be down to the dishwasher outflow pipe having become kinked, leading to dirty water accumulating and slowly leaking back there. We only found out when the dishwasher itself registered some kind of overflow error code, by which time it had been going on for weeks. We'd blamed almost everything in the house by then.

Ooh. Ok. Hadn't thought of that. I'll have a root around in that vicinity.

We had what we thought were fruit flies on the soil in a pot of growing herbs. You couldn’t see them on the soil as they and it were black, but they were there :shudder:. I threw it out and all was well.

I've had that with herbs before too. Bin. Gone.

Herbs here too. Who knew this was the kind of content to entice Vag to post again?