Stupid Fruitflies!

I gripe about them a lot, but I'm about at my wits end with the stupid bugs.  They don't seem to go away no matter what we do-and they've been around since we moved in last October.

I've gone online and done pretty much everything that all the sites say to do, including:
1. Put out a cup with apple cider vinegar mixed with a touch of dish soap.  This does seem to work-at least, for most of the stupid things.  We have to change it out every few hours, though, because the bottom gets black with dead fruit flies.

2. The garbage goes out every other day regardless of how full it is-and no matter what, if we work with chicken, it goes out that night.

3. We've stopped buying our fruit and vegetables at the Commissary-we now buy them at Safeway because when we shop there, there are no fruit flies buzzing around the produce. 

4. Every dish gets washed or put into the dishwasher immediately after using them.

5. Once a week I boil hot water, then dump it down the drain and immediately cover the hole with the little sink blocker thing.  We also use vinegar and baking soda to clean out the disposal.

6. I leave all our windows closed.  I've realized that they seem to spawn faster during the hot, humid, damp weather.  And while we have screens on our windows, they're small enough to climb through the holes.

7. All food is kept sealed in the fridge or in the cupboard locked inside containers.

All of these precautions and it still seems like they're everywhere.  They're in the freezer, the fridge, the cupboards.  I've found them in a double sealed bread bag that we put in the fridge.  They fly around while I'm sitting at my computer desk, when I'm in the bathroom or when we're trying to prepare dinner.  I think they know I hate them because sometimes it's like they try to attack me-they swarm, even.  My cousin mentioned that they like plants-but we don't have any plants, so I don't know what else to do.

I blame the weather.  I also don't like that down on the first floor as you go down the stairs, all of our garbage cans are placed there along the sidewalk-and you can't move them or you get a warning from the apartment people.  I don't think that having them there is helping-I think they breed there and the fly into the apartment.  I don't know my neighbors, but I wouldn't be surprised if they're having the same problem. 

Ben says that they're really bad at work, too.  And he's talked to guy who live on the bottom floor of the apartment buildings or in the on-base houses-summer is horrible, according to them.  They get inundated with fruit flies, cockroaches, spiders (speaking of which, the other day I looked out on our deck and saw a spider about the size of my fist-I had no idea that spiders that big existed out here-EW!) and geckos-no thanks. 

So that was my rant.  Thank you for letting me. ^_^