Spent 4 hours chasing fruit flies because I forgot one dumb thing about my bin | Apartment Composting

Casey Fox · 2026-11-03T21:20:04.684405+00:00

So I've been doing the bokashi thing in my one bedroom in Portland for about 8 months now and never had a fly issue until two weeks ago when a swarm showed up out of nowhere. I checked the lid seal, I buried the scraps deeper, I even moved the bin from under my sink to the closet thinking it was too warm. Took me almost 4 hours over 3 days of reading forums and wiping down the walls before I figured it out, the drain spout at the bottom had about an inch of liquid sitting in it that I never emptied because I couldn't see it. Once I drained that and ran hot water through the spout, the flies were gone in a day and a half. I felt so dumb for not checking the most obvious spot first. Now I'm wondering what other little spots I'm ignoring on this thing. Does anyone drain theirs on a set schedule or do you just peek when it starts smelling?

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Spent 4 hours chasing fruit flies because I forgot one dumb thing about my bin | Apartment Composting - The Community Guide