Few things are more miserable than finding a cloud of fruit flies buzzing around—and one solution used by Starbucks employees to catch the small pests is certainly out of the box.
In a video shared by Starbucks barista Ellie (@elliezaucha1), she shows her manager’s best attempts at using fruit fly traps throughout the restaurant. The efforts to contain the annoying insects escalate to attempting to suck the flies into a Shop-Vac by swinging the nozzle around in the air.
“The manager thinking the traps are getting rid of the flys,” Ellie wrote in a text overlay on the video. The truth, according to an audio used in the video, is that the vacuum has been more effective.
@elliezaucha1 #starbucks #fruitflys #fruitflytrap #funny #fyp #foryou #tellthemthetruth ♬ united in grief – veleffy
The clip has drawn more than 1.2 million viewers, with several commenters suggesting alternative solutions that do not involve swinging a heavy vacuum.
“Make sure that the market team cleans there drains, and the milk drains,” one commenter wrote. “Sometimes it’s not the Starbucks, it’s actually the drains in the store.”
“My manager literally got one of those electric fly zappers that looks kind of like a tennis racket and when it wasnt too busy we’d just wave it around,” another said.
Others shared that they had previous or ongoing issues with fruit flies at their own Starbucks stores.
“Broo we have a fly problem at my sb and they have me getting on my hands and knees every night to clean those drains,” one commented.
“LOL I used to catch them in venti cups and then stack them up really high to make fly condo buildings,” another added.
“I worked at sbux and we had the same problem! nothing worked, no matter how often we cleaned the drains and store – which was multiple times a day,” a further user claimed.
The Daily Dot has reached out to Ellie via comment on the video, as well as to Starbucks via email.
