In eighth grade I read one of my favorite books, Lord of the Flies. From the title of this post, maybe you are thinking that I am writing a book review. Wrong. This is not a review of a novel, but in fact this post is a story of an epic battle between man and flies.

Setting: The Hotel

“This place reminds me of a hotel, but the good parts, you know?”

— Ryan, my roommate

Lots of people give nicknames to their domains in order to highlight a certain uniqueness about the domain. Ryan and I decided to call our place, The Hotel. Everything at the Hotel was good. The place was clean and comfortable until we went under attack.

The enemy: Drosophila melanogaster (a.k.a. fruit fly)

There are many ways that fruit flies can infiltrate a domain. According to Insects.About.com, fruit flies are attracted to fermenting fruit. The fruit flies can get into the domain through the door, the window, or they may hitch a ride via your fruits and vegetables from the store. Once they get into the domain, they reproduce. They lay lots and lots of eggs that create more flies to lay more eggs. They grow exponentially and in a week or two, you could have hundreds of fruit flies. Not fun! Do not wait to fix a problem or else the situation could get out of control (RULE 27).

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-F7LFdTA7U-o/Tnv0hcC5RlI/AAAAAAAABko/8P3-W101-Ys/s1600/fruit+fly+trap.jpg

There are different ways to take out fruit flies. One way is a apple vinegar trap which was our first weapon of choice. The apple scent attracts the flies and when the flies enter the cup, the vinegar kills the flies. The trap looks like this --->

We killed some flies, but we still could not fully get rid of the flies. They just kept coming back and reproducing. So then Ryan and I analyzed what they were attracted to and how we could stop that attraction. We were collecting a compost under the sink and the fruit flies would just hideout down there. After taking out the compost and not collecting anymore compost for some time, the flies were still in the Hotel. So I decided to raid the Hotel with Raid spray to kill all the flies once and for all.

I bought a can at the store and came home. I went all around the kitchen and the bathroom and sprayed the place. Did I kill every fly? NO :(! I messed up on how long I close the doors and cut off the filtration of air. I clearly did not pay attention too much to RULE 18. In result, I had to do a second round correctly that killed most of flies.

There were a few flies left in the Hotel, so Ryan and I decided to kill them with our bare hands, mano e mano. I will admit Ryan was better at killing the flies than me. The scoreboard was 10-3. Putting losing aside, we conquered the infestation of fruit flies. This epic battle has come to an end. Some say the battle is over but the war has just begun. Hopefully this is not the case for the Hotel and we will not have to battle anymore fruit flies. Only time will tell if there is a sequel to this great story.

References:

http://insects.about.com/od/insectssociety/qt/Where-Do-Fruit-Flies-Come-From.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drosophila_melanogaster