Time Flies Like an Arrow...Fruit Flies Like a Banana

I don't think I am the only one in these humid summer months with a fruit fly problem. I would like to think that the unsanitary kitchens of the neighboring apartments are the source of these little pests, but regardless of where they come from, they have been driving me crazy. Also, after discovering a year or so ago that fruit flies cause pink eye, I feel like my imagination is really running away with me as it now seems that the little guys are dive bombing my face to slap me with the good ol' conjunctivitis. I have read about several different ways to rid yourself of the pests, but this one is the only one that has worked effectively for me.

You need:
a jar
a sheet of paper (for goodness sake use something you were going to recycle or throw away anyway. No blank sheets! I used an old Spanish test so they can enrich their minds while they drown in vinegar)
masking tape
apple cider vinegar
piece or 2 of banana

Process:
Put about a centimeter of apple cider vinegar at the bottom of the jar, then put in the banana slices. Make a cone/funnel shape out of the sheet of paper and put this in the jar point-down (you may need to cut a little bit off the tip so it doesn't touch the bottom of the jar or touch the vingar. It also might help to tape the seam on the cone to keep it together). Make sure to tape around the opening of the jar very well so the flies can't get out.

What happens:
Fruit flies fly into the jar through the cone to get the banana, but for some reason can't find the way back out. They die in there. You will have a little fruit fly graveyard on your hands, but hey, they were trying to infect you with pink eye! You can put the jar right in the freezer to kill them off, then just put it right back out in your kitchen.

So you could have found this "recipe" if you were to search the interwebs, but I'm hoping that someone that reads that has been accepting fruit flies as an inevitability in their lives, and thus have not looked up solutions to the problem online yet.

< Doomed!