There is nothing more irritating than those uninvited pests that fly around your house and buzz around your fruit and houseplants. We understand all too well the revulsion that the mere sight of fruit flies cause, and the shiver of horror they inspire. You may find yourself wondering how to get rid of fruit flies.
Nothing is safe from these pesky flying irritants. Once they infest your home, they continue to multiply at an alarming speed to plague your planters and haunt your fruit bowls, drains, and bins. It is not an uncommon problem, though. It’s a simple one to deal with once you know a few hints and tricks.
How to Get Rid of Fruit Flies
It stands to reason that the first step is to identify the cause of the flying plague and eliminate it. Thorough cleaning of the area will also help. However, there are some simple remedies you may employ to aid in their extermination.
Homemade remedies such as apple cider will trap and kill the blighters. You may even use leftover red wine to create a swimming pool trap. Failing that, you may resort to sticky fly traps or even predatory mites to clean up for you.
No products found.
No products found.
Related Reading: How to Get Rid of Drain Flies: 4 Simple Hacks
Find the Offending Cause
If you are unlucky enough to suffer from an infestation, the first thing you must consider when you wonder how to get rid of fruit flies is the cause. Identify the cause and remove it. It sounds simple, and believe it or not, it is.
Fruit flies tend to buzz around food sources, mainly fruit. Also, if you have some rotten fruit in a bowl or the bin, the fruit flies will have a feast. Therefore, when you approach the problem of how to get rid of fruit flies, remove the fruit!
Clean sweep
Throw out the fruit or vegetables. It sounds like a waste but remains a necessary evil. However, once the flies find it, the food is ruined. Therefore, you must dispose of it.
Scrub away the memory
Once you have removed the offending articles, then you must clean the area thoroughly with a propriety cleaner. Any brand of household cleaner will work to disinfect the area. Clean all the surfaces and make sure that you clean waste bins as well.
In most cases, this will solve the problem. Once you remove the food source for the flies, then you also remove the problem. When you consider how to get rid of fruit flies, good housekeeping and cleanliness remain the key.
No products found.
No products found.
Home Remedies
Sometimes the infestation may prove so problematic that you may need to take further action. Furthermore, you may find the solution regarding how to get rid of fruit flies in your store cupboards. Consequently, these simple tricks may help to solve your flying problem.
Create a swimming pool trap
If you like a glass of red wine of an evening, you may find that you have a little left in the bottle. If so, then a simple swimming pool trap will answer the question of how to get rid of fruit flies.
Pour the leftover wine into a disposable container and add a little household detergent to the mix. Cover the container with cling film, making sure that the edges remain entirely sealed.
Poke a few holes into the film using the sharp end of a pencil. The holes need to be big enough for the flies to crawl through but not big enough for them to fly out. The trick here is that once the flies crawl into your trap, they are unable to escape through the holes.
The flies are attracted to the red wine. They will fall into your indulgent swimming pool and die in the unpalatable liquid. Overnight, you should find the problem solved, and you may dispose of the container safely.
A bitter end
Most of us have vinegar in our store cupboards, and this proves the most useful weapon against the common fruit fly.
Place a few tablespoons of water and vinegar in a plastic cup. Stir in some sugar and a little household detergent. The flies will swarm to the mixture. As a result, once they touch the solution, they drown.
Related Read: How to Get Rid of Cluster Flies. All You Need to Know to Prevent Them
A vinegar trap is a great solution to use around the home wherever you see the offending flies. You may place cups of the killer concoction around your home and next to planters. Very quickly, you will find the problem resolved as the flies get themselves into a pickle.
No products found.
No products found.
A Store-Bought Solution
Sometimes you may find the need to purchase a fly trap solution to the problem. Perhaps you have young children, and you feel uncomfortable leaving homemade remedies lying around. Consequently, some handy fly traps exist in the marketplace.
Katchy problem
No products found.
No products found.
Katchy manufactures an indoor insect trap that uses UV light to attract the invaders. A small internal fan sucks the blighters into the device, at which point they find themselves trapped on sticky paper. You may replace the sticky paper with ease, so the device will continue to work effectively for a long time.
While the trap will not kill house flies, it is effective on fruit flies, gnats, and mosquitos.
A sticky end
No products found.
No products found.
Sticky fly traps remain a tried and tested remedy. Basic Concepts produce a double-sided yellow sticky fly trap that will kill fruit flies. You simply hang the sticky yellow tabs in the affected area and around planters, and the flies find themselves attracted to the yellow surface. The sticky coating traps the flies and kills them.
The product is non-toxic and child friendly and may prove a useful weapon when you consider how to get rid of fruit flies.
How to get rid of fruit flies from your planters
No products found.
No products found.
You may have a lot of planters around your home where the fruit flies will thrive. Stingmon makes a sticky fruit fly trap that is designed specifically for placing discreetly in your planters.
The little sticky yellow taps are shaped like birds and have an arrow shape on the bottom that you poke into the soil of the planter. The bright color attracts the insects, and the strong glue stops them from escaping. The fly killer is easy to use and non-toxic. Also, the waterproof nature of the traps ensures their longevity.
Using Nature to Fight Nature
Organic Control is a company that champions the natural, organic solution to pest control. They advocate the use of beneficial insects to control and eliminate unwanted guests. Consequently, the use of these beneficial insects in the home and the garden provide a safe and organic solution to insect infestations without harming the environment.
How to get rid of fruit flies using beneficial nematodes
Organic Control recommends the use of beneficial nematodes to eradicate fruit flies. The nematodes are microscopic in size, and you cannot see them with the naked eye. The nematodes eat the larvae of the fruit fly, and consequently, eradicate the problem at its root.
This safe, organic method of pest control proves particularly useful when you consider how to get rid of fruit flies in containers and planters. You spray the soil with the provided solution, and this releases the nematodes into the soil.
No products found.
No products found.
The Last Resort
You can, of course, hire an exterminator to rid you of the problem. However, this is an expensive solution, and you should try the home remedies before you consider hiring the experts.
It is worth noting that exterminators use harmful, toxic chemicals to treat such problems. If you have underlying health issues, this may not prove the best solution for you.
Health Is the Bottom Line
Infestations such as those of the common fruit fly pose serious health problems if left unchecked. By nature, flies pick up bacteria and deposit it wherever they land. This includes your food and preparation surfaces.
Flies find themselves particularly attracted to manure and feces, and then the flies land on your food. Not a very pleasant thought, is it? Such contamination may carry harmful bacteria such as E. Coli, which is dangerous for adults and children alike.
In addition, fruit flies lay their eggs in the fruit. As a result, the fruit flies contaminate the food. No-one wants to eat anything with fly eggs inside it.
Cleanliness and good housekeeping remain at the forefront of the fight against such contamination. Furthermore, when you consider how to get rid of fruit flies, you must also consider the health implications of not dealing with the problem immediately.
A Problem Recurring
If you keep the food storage areas clean and dispose of any rotten vegetables and fruit, then you will reduce the risk of further infestation. However, the problem can reoccur if you do not keep up with such due diligence.
Once you have a problem with fruit flies, it may take anywhere from a few days to a couple of weeks to solve the situation. Not only is it a nuisance, but it also presents a potential health risk. By ensuring that your bins, drains, and food areas remain clean at all times, you dramatically reduce the risk of a fruit fly infestation.
How to Get Rid of Fruit Flies Answered
No-one likes to see a cloud of tiny black insects buzzing around your kitchen or planters. The thought of small flies landing on your food remains unpalatable at best. However, should such a problem occur, we now know how to deal with it simply and effectively.
By creating a simple red wine swimming pool, we may trap and drown the flies before they become too much of a problem. Alternatively, use vinegar, water, and sugar in plastic cups to drown the menace. Use proprietary sticky tabs in your planters to kill the flies or consider using an organic solution such as beneficial insects to help you win the fight.
While we may all have to wonder how to get rid of fruit flies at some point in our lives, these simple and easy to follow instructions offer practical solutions. With just a few household ingredients, we may soon claim victory over the flying menace.
Featured image is “Fruit Fly” by shioshvili and is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0
Last update on 2022-06-02 at 02:16 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
