Vanity: Fruit Flies and TracFone, Advice requested

[Jamestown1630]

Sorry for the vanity; (and also sorry for the length of this). But I’ve gotten good advice from people here about household problems in the past; and now I have a couple more.

1. For the first time that I can remember, I have had an infestation of fruit flies. We think it may have come from a bag of potatoes, which is something we’ve never bought before – we usually just buy the few single potatoes that we are going to use immediately. We got rid of that bag, and every fresh thing – onions, tomatoes, whatever - that was sitting out. But it didn’t solve the problem.

We spent many dollars on various solutions over the past 10 days or so (we can’t use exterminators for this, as we have cats and birds, and I have a lot of allergies.)

We tried the bowls and glasses of apple cider vinegar with drops of dish detergent squirted in, and also with red wine. These were somewhat helpful, but the kitchen still had scores of them flying around.

Then, I saw a video suggesting ‘Raid Fly Strips’. We bought them, and baited them with beer (Guiness Extra Stout!), according to another YouTuber. (I am not associated with ‘Raid’, and am not promoting them; it’s just the only thing that has worked in our particular situation.)

After 1-1/2 hours, this thing had gotten scores of these little jerks stuck to it. And for the rest of the night, I only saw two of them flying around. We’ll see what happens tomorrow.(I need to give a hat tip to YouTuber 'Ethnic Mama' who suggested this product. She doesn't seem to be around much these days, but I will be eternally grateful):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXHHLqUd22c

But if there are any exterminators here, I have a question:

Many years ago, we lived in an apartment that suddenly got infected with those little tan roaches. We had never seen them there before, and assumed that someone had moved in and brought them, or had bombed and dispersed them.

The management company sent this wonderful young man around, who just had a tiny pen-like thing; and all he did was squirt a little spot of something into corners of drawers, cabinets, etc. We didn’t have to clear out all of our cabinets or lock our cats up, it was completely non-invasive to the household.

Within a week or so, all those roaches were gone! We never had that problem again. But does anyone know what that stuff was??? I'd really like to know, in case we ever encounter those roaches again.

2. TracFone issue

Is there anyone here who uses TracFone?

We’ve used it for many years. We don’t use cellphones much at all; They’ve been very useful sometimes, and worth the small price; but I normally use mine just to listen to the radio :-)

We got a message tonight indicating that TracFone had somehow collaborated with Verizon to provide information sharing (?) and if we wanted to opt-out of having our ‘information’ shared, we needed to opt out by texting something or going to a website.

This is the second time this year that a service provider that we use has signed us up for something that we didn’t want or ask for, and required that WE opt out. Shouldn’t they be asking us if we want what they’re offering in the first place? The only recent thing I’ve found about this was on Reddit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/TracFone/comments/15akaha/just_received_a_message_that_tracfone_is_now/

Thanks, and apologies again for the length of this.

[SaveFerris]

I used to get the $25 card when TracFone tripled - it was the best deal

I think Consumer Cellular has a $20 plan with some more modern phones (not just flip)

[Jamestown1630]

Thanks. Can you use the phone you have? We’ve had Samsung phones for about 7 years that are still working great.

[SaveFerris]

I’m not sure if Consumer Cellular has BYOP

If course it’s got to be unlocked 🔓 too

[Jamestown1630]

OK. Thanks very much.

[SaveFerris]

👍👍