For some reason, this summer, the fruits I got had lost of fruit flies. It led to an infestation in my apartment, which I got rid of using a cup containing a shallow amount of apple cider vinegar, to which I added a few drops of dish detergent. I covered the cup in saran wrap in which I poked 3 holes that were more than big enough for a fruit fly to enter through.

Part of the problem is that I don't change the kitchen garbage every day. It is a 10L garbage can, and it would be very wasteful to change it every day because I generate a neglegible amount of daily waste. So even though my cider trap kills the existing fruit flies, whenever I lift the garbage lid to throw stuff out, more flies come out. They eventually get trapped by the cider, but it's annoying. I've taken to squirting the vinegar into the garbage can whenever I open it. It seems to keep the problem under control. In fact, lately, it seems to have eliminated any fruit flies even when lifting the garbage lid. The vinegar does dry up, so it's probably too hostile an environment for the flies to mature form the larvae stage.

However, I have found larvae around the edge of the garbage can. It's a good quality can, [SimpleHuman 10L](http://www.thebay.com/webapp/wcs/sto...emi-round-can). They seemed quite inanimate, probably due the the vinegar. For good measured, I soaked them again, then wiped them up. Unfortunately, dead-looking larvae also seemed to be in crevices in the garbage can that required vacuuming. Now, I took the precaution of tossing the vacuum bag, but it was a huge waste because it was largely empty.

So my question is, how likely is it that these dead looking larvae are actually alive but inanimate because of the vinegar trauma, but still have a potential to revive? What if they are simply very sedentary and not dead?

P.S. Some of the crevices were such that even vacuuming left one or two, and I drenched them in 70% isoproppyl alcohol. I later read that fruit flies saturate they offspring with alcohol, so that probably wasn't a great idea..

P.P.S. I posted this to [usenet](http://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=e...lt.home.repair) and [Stack Exchange](http://diy.stackexchange.com/questio...it-fly-larvae).