There are lots of beautiful things on Earth, and also some annoying things.

Gnats and skin moles can be annoying, and there’s one thing in the kitchen cabinet that can get rid of both: Apple cider vinegar.

Gnats or fruit flies have become something of a summertime plague here in our Colorado home in the past couple of years, for whatever reason. I have a live-and-let-live policy with most bugs outside, but they’re not welcome in the house. Here’s how I alleviate the gnat problem when they venture into our domain. I…

• Get a disposable plastic cup.
• Use scotch-tape to form a sheet of paper into a cone, and use scissors to cut off the tip so that a pea could pass through it.
• Pour a small amount of apple cider vinegar into the bottom of the cup and add a piece of fruit (cut grape, chunk of apple or pineapple or whatever….) that sits like an island in the vinegar.
• Place the paper cone in the cup so that the tip is an inch or so above the fruit and vinegar, and the big end of the cone sticks out above the lip of the cup.
• Wrap a strip of duct tape around the top of the cup so that it sticks to both the lip of the cup and the upper part of the cone, and press it down all around the edge to allow no escape routes.

Place this luxury gnat hotel (see pictures…) on the kitchen counter so that they can enjoy their final hours in a gnats’-paradise setting. They love fruit and vinegar. Lots of gnats check in, few check out. After a few days, relocate the bustling hotel to the garbage, where more gnats might check in to the paradise resort.

Skin moles can be unsightly and get irritated when rubbing against clothes. I happened to be born with lots of moles, most of them small and flat and resembling big freckles… but a few of them are big and lumpy and ugly. To get rid of one of those lumpy moles, I…

• Rip a small, pea-sized piece of cotton from a cotton ball, and soak it in apple-cider vinegar.
• Place it over the mole, and place a short piece of scotch tape over it to hold it loosely in place.
• Fold up a Kleenex tissue to the size of a thick business card, and use a longer piece of scotch tape to hold the larger tissue pad over the little, taped-on wet cotton ball, to soak up any excess vinegar. (I’ve also used Band-Aids, but they’re more expensive and excessively adhesive for this small job. Scotch tape works just fine.)
• If the vinegar starts to burn and feel uncomfortable, you might be allergic… in which case remove all that stuff, rinse off the area with clean water, and don’t use this method.
• If all goes well, leave the compress on for an hour a day, then remove and dispose of it… and after a few days the mole will soften and drop off, probably during a shower or bath. My moles came off after three or four days. It may take up to two weeks for some people’s moles.

This simple technique (see pictures…) with tape, cotton, and vinegar has worked well for me, getting rid of moles quickly and painlessly.

Warning: If you have a “mole” that’s irregularly shaped and multi-colored, it might be a cancerous melanoma (see pictures…), in which case contact a skin doctor ASAP. Melanomas can be deadly.

If you use this mole removal technique during the height of fruit-fly season… and you become a gnat magnet… hey, not my problem….  🙂