Plagues of Biblical Proportions: Pests in my Home

I hate to admit it, but bugs are overrunning my house. Well, they were but not so much now. There are no locusts or frogs!

First, there were the fruit flies. Putting vinegar or ripe banana in a jar and sealing it with plastic wrap and a rubber band and punching a hole in the top never works for me. So, the vacuum cleaner is my weapon of choice. However, I could never make headway on the fruit flies.

Second, the Indian Meal Moths I brought home from a friend's house in January reappear occassionally. The traps with pheromone help lots.

Third, flies made their way into this 108-year-old house. It is anyone's guess as to where they came in.

Besides using the vacuum cleaner to scoop up fruit flies and moths from the air, I added a second and third weapon. I have already mention Pantry Pest and Victor fly stips from Lowe's. Both worked, yet the problems escalated. The traps for both were full of moths and fruit flies. However, no relief from the pests seemed to be in sight.

Then, amongst the foodstuffs for storage, I found a runny bag of spoiled white potatoes, leaking all over the kitchen floor. Upon surveying the whole place, I found another bag of potatoes harboring yet more fruit flies! Then, today as I bent to look in a file cabinet, the unbearable stench of rotten potatoes closed in. There, not six inches from my nose lay another bag of potatoes! Rotting! Foul!  Liquid! I think a friend put those there when he carried them in for me. Put them? Oh, just put them where it will be dark and cool and where I will not trip over them. sigh....

Now, one task remains. Yes, I am sure they are all gone and have not attacked the 25-lb box of peaches. Loading the dishwasher and vacuuming the remaining fruit flies, plus putting up two more fly papers. And, I will have solved the fruit fly problem for good. Well, a few may come back later, but I can handle a few. It was thousands that I could not deal with. Really, there were swarms. I have not canned anything or cooked for anyone but myself because I feared my cooking would be full of fruit flies.

No, I am not nasty. Things got out of hand for several reasons. I was not keeping up with what I brought into the house. Someone shared potatoes, so I forgot those. Others were put behind the door by someone else. Since I have never "lost" more than one or two potatoes at a time, and none have gone to liquid, this is an extraordinary failure on my part. Remember all the sleep I was not getting for two weeks because I accidentally drank caffeine for ten days? Well, that worked to make me ditzy and forgetful. Never again!

From now on potato bags will only sit in a pan that does not leak. Yes, I still have to keep them in the dark, but a tall paper bag in a leakproof container will work.

Okay, the flypaper is up and the lone fly that entered with me a few minutes ago is gone.

This has been a three-week or more ordeal. The houseflies have been dealt with. The fruit flies numbers have abated. And, the meal moths are gone. Maybe they are not meal moths since I found some on fabric. Maybe they just died there.

I can think of worst pests--roaches, fleas, or mosquitoes. Really, I should just thank my lucky stars I found all the pests favorite rotting foods and not bring the wrath of the pest god down on me. Shhhh, no more talk of what could have been, what pests I avoided.

Has anyone else had to struggle this hard to rid their home of fruit flies?