How to Get Rid of Fruit Flies Once and For All
Key Takeaways
Fruit flies are attracted to fresh produce and become more common in kitchens during summertime.
Fruit flies are reddish-brown colored flies and while harmless, they can be a nuisance and spread bacteria.
The most concerning aspect of fruit flies is their rapid reproduction rate, where females can lay 50 eggs per day that hatch within a week.
There are ways to get rid of fruit flies and prevent them from taking over your kitchen.
Learn How to Get Rid of Fruit Flies
Whether your favorite produce stand or farmers’ market has opened for the year, or you’re tweaking your eating habits to get yourself ready for that beach vacation that’s coming up, you probably have more fresh produce in your kitchen now that summertime has arrived.
Unfortunately, this transition to healthier eating often attracts some unwanted guests: fruit flies.
From a distance, fruit flies look like tiny gnats buzzing around your kitchen. When you get closer and find them resting on a surface, you’ll notice that they’re actually flies that are reddish-brown in color.
While they’re not necessarily dangerous, they are inconvenient and even embarrassing. No one wants to have to swat bugs out of the air while in their kitchen.
Also, you don’t want to have friends or family in your home for a visit only for them to see swarms of bugs hovering around your food.
Fruit flies don’t bite or sting, but one of the most irritating aspects of their presence in your home involves how fast they reproduce. They do spread bacteria, taking them from one surface to the next when they move around your home.
However, the most annoying trait of the fruit fly is that females can lay 50 eggs every day. Those eggs become full-grown adults within seven days, meaning that you can go from a single swarm of fruit flies to millions in no time.
Fortunately, fruit flies don’t have to be permanent guests in your home. There are some practical steps that you can take to get rid of them.
Getting Rid of What’s Attracting Fruit Flies
After fruit fly eggs hatch, the larvae burrow into ripe fruits and vegetables to eat. The earliest days of a fruit fly’s life are the most important for their growth and long-term health, so they typically try to eat anything they can during those first seven days.
While it’s not ideal, you need to throw away any ripe fruits and vegetables that are sitting out in your kitchen as these foods attract fruit flies and give the larvae something to eat.
If you have any produce sitting on your kitchen counters, put it in the refrigerator. While you won’t be able to do anything about the fruit flies that have already burrowed into those items, a thorough wash before eating will protect you from the bacteria.
However, you’ll need to keep in mind that fruits and vegetables are only part of the problem.
Wipe down all the surfaces in your kitchen with a food-safe cleaner. If there is any residue on your counters, fruit flies will be attracted to it.
While you’re cleaning up, take the time to thoroughly clean your trash can, including the bottom of it. Over time, food residue builds up, even in areas where it doesn’t seem like you’ve handled any food.
Another area that you’ll want to clean is your kitchen sink. This is especially true if you have a garbage disposal.
Since fruit flies are attracted to decomposing food, areas where there’s a lot of build-up are breeding grounds for these pests.
You can purchase drain cleaner that is safe for use in kitchens or make your own with baking soda and vinegar to flush the food debris down the drain.
Thoroughly cleaning your kitchen eliminates the things that attract fruit flies and also cuts off the supply of energy that they need to grow.
Make a Fruit Flies Trap
You can go to the store and purchase different types of a fruit flies trap. While you’re there, you can also pick up a bottle of fruit fly killer.
While most of these products are safe for use in your kitchen, it’s still a good idea to take the time to read the ingredients to make sure that you’re not using anything unsafe. This is especially true if you or anyone in your home has allergies.
However, if you don’t want to go to the store, there are plenty of ways that you can trap the fruit flies in your home on your own. Since you will have placed all of your remaining produce in the refrigerator during the cleaning process, they’re going to look for something to feast on.
One of the most proven methods of catching fruit flies involves using a glass bottle and a funnel, just like those that you probably have in your garage. If you don’t have a funnel on hand, rolling up a piece of paper into a cone and sticking it into the jar will work just as well.
Dice up some over-ripening fruit or pour a liquid that will attract the flies into the bottom of the jar. If you’ve already thrown out your produce, squirting some ketchup into the jar, or pouring wine into it will work just as well.
When the flies go down the funnel and into the substance at the bottom of the jar, it will be nearly impossible for them to get back out. Every day or two, throw your jar out, taking the entrapped fruit flies with it.
If the problem persists, you can keep trapping them this way until they’re all gone. It won’t take long for you to entrap the flies.
Fruit flies are attracted to scent, so if you have a significant pest problem in your kitchen, you may need to do something more drastic.
Begin by taking a bowl that’s microwave-safe and putting some apple cider vinegar in it. The fermented apples will be a natural attractant to the fruit flies.
Squirt three to four drops of dish soap into the bowl to make it even more aromatic.
Place the bowl in the microwave for around 30 seconds to fully activate the aromas and then set the bowl near the location of your greatest concentration of fruit flies.
Most of the flies will drown in the liquid mixture, and the ones that don’t are likely to get stuck in the mixture.
You can pour the mixture down your sink and make a new one as regularly as you need to until the fruit flies are gone.
Another way to use the fruit fly’s natural desires against it involves taking around one-and-a-half tablespoons of vinegar (you can use apple cider or white) along with one-and-a-half tablespoons of sugar.
Add both of those items to a bowl or cup, then add in a splash of warm water to help the sugar dissolve. Once again, put a few drops of dish soap into the concoction and then sit the mixture near your greatest concentration of fruit flies.
The sugar and vinegar don’t only attract the flies, but the thickness of the mixture makes it impossible for their tiny wings to get free.
How to Catch Fruit Flies With Wine
If you don’t want to go through the trouble of making a mixture to trap your fruit flies, there is another, more straightforward approach to take.
Fruit flies are attracted to fermenting fruit, so if you have a bottle of wine in your home, you’ve got exactly what they’re looking for. If you’re open to sacrificing a single glass of wine to rid your home of flies, set the glass out and wait for the flies to come to the fermented fruits in the wine.
Since the flies eat the microorganisms found in fermenting fruit, they love a good glass of wine.
Get Rid of Fruit Flies Forever
You don’t have to deal with fruit flies forever. While you’ve got your traps set out in your kitchen, take the time to go through your home and pour white vinegar or boiling water (or both) down every drain in your home, even those that are in your bathrooms.
When you put the produce in your kitchen in the fridge, fruit flies will start looking for other areas where they can get to decaying materials, so drains are a perfect place for them.
If you opt for boiling water, be sure to handle it with care, as you don’t want to get burnt trying to get pests out of your home.