Infestation

The ends of cut green onions were in a small bowl with water, rooting (Why? Scott reminds me, they already had roots), when one day I came home to find them covered in small flies.

The onions went outside immediately, but the flies are still here and they are driving me right around the bend. Every day I pick up the flyswatter and hunt them in every room, killing dozens upon dozens. But still they appear walking on the windows, the walls, the cupboards; they flutter up from the garbage, the recycling, the toilet, the sink; they tickle my nose when I'm reading in bed. I have developed a hate.

Scott has fashioned a couple traps with bottles and paper cones and apple cider vinegar, and the liquid is now a disgusting soup of dead insects.

They are drawn to the scent of the vinegar, but most aren't smart enough to find their way out.

They drown.

Yet it seems to make hardly a dint. Apparently they are laying eggs somewhere. He thinks maybe in my houseplants, and maybe we should move the plants outside. I don't agree; those would be fungus gnats, usually, which are smaller than these, and it is moving them outside that would attract fungus gnats to lay eggs in their soil.

Dad suggests buying Raid, spraying it in all the rooms, and leaving for the day.
Scott suggests moving the recycling outside (what a pain in the ass that will be), keeping the sink drains dry and blocked, the sink and countertops immaculate, and no fruit or vegetables except in the fridge.
We will have to try everything because I am sick of flies in my face.

And flyswatters. Why is it that I see the swatter has missed a fly on the wall, yet the insect falls down to the floor, dead? Why is it that I see I have hit it dead-on, yet it flies away free? So weird.