apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Going back to the 15th & Fiona's questioning of Swiffer Luv - the key is to ignore the regular Swiffers and pretend they never existed. What you want is either the regular Swiffer mop on which you will only use Swiffer Wet cloths, or a full-on Swiffer Wet-Jet.

Someone else mentioned washing their Swiffer cloths for environmental reasons. Why not just buy microfiber cleaning cloths? They're readily available at home stores and last much much longer. I have a bunch that I think are by 3M. (But I can't claim to have a super-clean house - I have a similar disability to Dorianne's, and I really don't do a ton of the housework around here - it's a struggle to keep up.)

The Swiffer Wet-Jet is one of the few housekeeping tools where I go all suburban 50s housewife and rave. In under 10 minutes, you can have an apartment kitchen and bath looking reasonably sanitary, with no bending, wringing, or rinsing. The Swiffer is the only reason our kitchen and bathroom floors are cleaned regularly.

A couple caveats. 1: It pushes dirt into corners and is not good for messes that have to be scrubbed at. 2: By the time the AA batteries run out of juice, you'll have forgotten they existed and wonder why your Swiffer doesn't work.

HELP! I'm being attacked by fruit flies!

I know it is probably too late in the day (I'm on west coast time) to post a request and hope for a reply, but I am desperate. I got rid of all produce. No more fruit bowl on the counter, empty the trash frequently, disinfected all surfaces like mad - the tiny little flying creatures still dart around! I don't know where they come from or why they won't hurry up and die or something. Is there any method to killing/catching/ending this invasion?

(PS Last summer my area had a bad case of these little flying beasts that even ended up on the news so I don't know if my town is a giant fruit bowl or what.)

I don't know why that double posted - I tried to post it once and got some weird message about a system in place to avoid spamming or something like that and a delay so to try and post again later - wha???

here is the fruitfly-cide trick

it starts with a cut piece of overripe/rotting fruit, peach or something else soft is best. you put it in a bowl and put a tight seal of saran wrap on it - you might want to put a rubber band around the rim of the bowl.

you punch a small hole in the saran wrap

the fruitflies are attracted to the rotting fruit (the rotting-er the better) They find the way in, but can't find their way out. You get to dump out the dead flies every day, and keep the rotting fruit for more luring of fruit flies.

fun, right? you can also try it with sugar water, but the fruit is the way to go
happy hunting

...and you can always suck them up with your vaccuum hose.

Hi there.

Last summer my kids left some bananas in our camper van. One heat wave and two weeks passing equaled many fruit flies. LOL. I cleaned. I vacuumed. I sprayed. But the buzzing pests remained. With some searching I found instructions on how to make your own fruit fly traps. If you have orange juice and a pop bottle you have a cure!

http://fruitflytraps.com/hometrap.htm

Hope that helps,

Joeline

They also sometimes fly down and hang out in your kitchen sink pipes so try pouring boiling water or bleach down the drain.

How do you get rid of the odor. Do I need to clean the painted walls? If so , what should I use?

Jannie

OK
I'm talking about the odor left behind when you get rid of the gazillion fruit flies that lived for a month in my enclosed camper along with large amounts of fruit left behind.
Sorry my first message was unclear.
What's the easiest way to clean the walls?
Carpet are being cleaned etc. What exactly is the odor from?

Jannie