The Fly II: Goldbloom Harder

Some useful advice from Chris Devidal:

Seeing as how I spend a fair percentage of my time over there, I figure I'll do you red house fellas a favor and share with you one of our beige house tips.

When you live with two chicks who don't know how to run a dishwasher or take out trash, you get used to your fair share of disgusting shit that you find. Among the latest was our roommates decision to cook a huge meal sometime in early May, and instead of taking the trash bag with vegetable parts and meat scraps to the trashcan, she tucked it away in the hallway to our unused side deck. Needless to say, within 2 weeks we were pestered by an overwhelming stench and an abundance of what seemed to be fruit flies. When I discovered said bag, I almost threw up when it weighed about 40 pounds and was basically pounds of maggots. Since this revolting incident, our house has contained several thousand small flies, which have since grown into large house flies, with more reaching maturity every day. With that in mind, the sanitary answer to your fly problem.

70 % Isopropyl Alcohol. First aid section of HEB, 53 cents a bottle. A standard pump-spray head (from a windex bottle for instance) screws right onto the top, and this becomes your first line of defense against the disease spreading bastard flies.

It'll knock down the little ones with surprising power, and once down can either be stepped on or sprayed heavily with alcohol to kill them. As for the big ones, you can get within 4 or 5 inches away, deliver a good spray, and they should be rendered flightless, where you can either spray a pool of alcohol on them or crush them. With previous tactics, such as newspaper or fly swatters, I was killing 10 or 15 a day. With the bottle of alcohol I've been able to shoot down 30 or 40 of the big ones daily, plus whole squadrons of little ones, all in less time than it ever took to kill a few of the larger ones.

The positives (besides the speed) are expense and sanitation. The alcohol is cheaper than water, and you can spray it on everything. Not only does it evaporate quickly and not endanger edibles (or dishware), it also disinfects any nasty shit the little buggers might have spread.

The negatives are of course the smell and inherent flammability of Isopropyl Alcohol. It does get a little fumey, but as long as you don’t go overboard, will disperse without opening windows. Also, don’t spray it too close to a pilot light of any kind, since it is flammable, and burns with a very very light blue haze that can be difficult to see.

After a week of battle, I’m finally gaining ground on the fuckers and am on my way to winning the war. Also, a good swift spray of alcohol in the eyes does wonders against roommates leaving decomposing food inside the house.

Good luck and godspeed,
Chris