friend or foe ?

[Kaiya]

The larvae eat things (love potato apparently) but the flies don't eat I believe. We've had them in the kitchen all over winter - drove me bananas. To combat them we (ok, I) instigated a no-watering rule on all house plants, regardless of how dry they got. It took a few weeks (longer as I found a saturated pot of hyacinths my mother was sneakily watering in the next room) but that appears to have defeated them, although I think we've lost an overwintering chilli plant.

I am very good now at killing flies by clapping them.

[jdlondon]

The larvae is what I'm worrying about, since I've transferred most of my stuff to the bed and those flies were about when they were inside, which could mean my whole new bed could be infested.

The chayote was in a pot inside until I planted it out when the weather got better, but bigger container still is a container so maybe it was doomed regardless, since it's down as not being container-friendly.