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I. Hate. Bugs. From tiny creepy crawlers to flapping flyers, I am more than happy to socially distance myself from anything of the insect variety. So, when I left the big city a few years ago and moved to a rustic, in-the-middle-of-nowhere spot, I knew that I was going to have to step up my pest prevention efforts: I was on their turf now. Right away, I invested in what my new neighbors considered the Cadillac of electric insect trappers. I hung it outside, and in a week it was filled with moths and mosquitoes. I was thoroughly impressed — until I twisted it open and found myself enveloped in a disgusting cloud of dusty, dead moth parts. Compared with that mess, these outdoor intruders suddenly didn’t seem so bad. But it’s a whole different story when you’re dealing with pests inside the house.
Reluctant to spend a ton of money (again) for something that would be the opposite of a solution, I tried to ignore my fruit fly problem at first. If you’ve ever attempted to do the same, you know that it’s a losing battle, especially when you have fruit trees growing in the backyard. So I looked to the internet and discovered Katchy, a trap made specifically for catching flying insects inside the house.
Since I now knew what to look out for, Katchy had several unique features that appealed to me right away. First, when you place it on the kitchen counter, its sleek design can easily pass for an appliance as opposed to an eyesore that screams “I have a bug problem!” (In fact, I later realized that I’d seen this white version in a friend’s living room for weeks and assumed it was a high-tech speaker.)
Second, the depository opens on a hinge with a simple click of a button — no potentially traumatic twisting required. The trapping system seemed straightforward enough, too: Katchy uses a UV light to attract pests (it works best at night when the lights are out), then a fan pulls them down into a receptacle chamber where they stick to a glue pad. The concept of a replaceable glue board was alluring, as it solved two of my most dreaded problems: keeping dead insects in place and avoiding a disgusting mess.
When my Katchy arrived, I plugged it in near the area with the highest concentration of fruit flies: the garbage pail. I turned out the kitchen lights, flipped the machine to “standard”(there’s a “low” setting, too), and left it running all night, curious about what I’d discover in the morning. Well, the electric trap is so quiet that I forgot it was on and didn’t wind up checking it until the afternoon. I was both immensely satisfied and totally grossed out at what I saw. The glue pad was dotted with at least 30 dead fruit flies, as well as a couple of moths and a few mosquitoes. When I opened the chamber, they all stayed put on the glue board (cancel my therapy appointment, doc!). The next night, I caught the same amount and swapped out the board in the morning. My icky, unwelcome house guests were already dwindling; it took about five days for the next glue pad to fill up.
Apartment Therapy’s home projects editor Megan also became a big Katchy fan after it solved one of her ickiest household issues, too. “I bought Katchy after having fungus gnats in my houseplants for weeks!” she shares. “I plugged it in by the plants, and it’s for more effective and attractive than the sticky papers I was using before.”
As for me, I replace my Katchy glue boards every couple of weeks, which is pretty much as close as I’m going to get to eradicating these little annoyances. They’re not completely gone, but after all, I’m still on their turf. And if that’s the tradeoff for picking bananas and starfruit from my very own trees, then it’s totally worth it.