War of the Flies

I'm having fly problems. For a country that is reported to be insect free, those that exist seem to be living with me.

It started with the garbage can, or lack of garbage can, in the kitchen. It's a wastepaper basket. No lid. We looked for a North American, standard issue kitchen garbage can with lid. No luck. Or, I should say, we found some, but they were tiny - about the size of a brown paper bag. And they were in the bathroom section. What good is that? Nothing kitchen-related. For a country as eco-aware as Sweden appears to be, based on the number of organic items one finds (organic fruit & veg, meat, wine, beer, cosmetics), wouldn't garbage be a priority? Mind you, there isn't any municipal recycling that we've found. You can take your bottles and cans into the grocery store to cash them in, but nothing other than box cardboard goes out with the trash.

The flies came. Not many, enough to notice. I covered everything. I created a lid for our wastepaper basket out of another plastic bag. Eventually, I gave up and moved the garbage out of the kitchen to the back balcony. Inconvenient, yes. End of the flies? Sort of.

So as I wander around Göteborg, I notice in a few flower shops, mini Venus Flytraps. Is this, I wonder to myself, the Swedish way to deal with fruit flies? Are they a common nuisance? Does one feed them to one's plants? Will I have to create my own Little Kitchen of Horrors?

Last Thursday, Peter and I take one last 'think outside the box' trip to Bäckebol, home of the outlet stores. We find laundry hampers that are the right size. Lid? Check. Ventilation holes. Uncheck. Then, we see it. At Bauhaus, the Swedish Home Depot. In the bathroom department. A somewhat almost standard issue North American style kitchen garbage can with lid and foot pedal. Sold.

No more flies. No more fruit flies. Now we have 2 standard issue North American type house flies circling the light in the kitchen. They don't land, they just do circles. There used to be 3 of them, but I squished one and it scared the other 2 off for a couple of hours. But they're back.

Maybe I'll try the plant next.