Friday, October 10, 2008

Homemade Fruit Fly Trap To Get Rid Of Those Little Pests!!!

Anyone who has ever left a few bananas sitting out or forgotten to change their garbage knows all too well the problem with fruit flies. It seems that once they've invaded your kitchen, you can't get rid of them. You can scrub, clean, remove tempting fruit and spray the garbage can with disinfectants, but they always come back. You can't help but cringe just looking at them.

We all know that removing the food, getting rid of the garbage & cleaning up plays a big role, but we also know what it's like to move a piece of fruit and have a swarm of fruit flies fill the air only to escape your attempts at killing them. Where are they gonna go? Obviously the ones flying around can't be easily captured or killed, so they'll linger about until they find some other place to lay eggs and the whole cycle starts again.

While considered mainly a pest, they have the potential to contaminate food with dangerous bacteria......I found the best way to capture and remove the ones that escape is to create a simple trap using a narrow-necked 2 or 3 liter soda bottle and fill the bottom inch or so with fruit juice, beer, soda, V8, apple cider, or vinegar along with a few drops of cooking oil or dish soap to break the liquid’s surface tension so any bugs that attempt to land will get caught in the liquid. Place the bottle in the area of infestation and watch all of the little fruit flies get trapped in the bottle or trapped in the liquid inside......

Don’t have any bottles? That’s ok, make this trap instead. Take any size bowl and cover the bottom with fruit juice, beer, soda, V8, apple cider, or vinegar along with a few drops of cooking oil or dish soap and then cover the top with plastic wrap. Poke several small holes in the wrap with a fork or thin knife and set it out in the area of infestation. The fruit flies will smell their way into the bowl and will be unable to escape....

For bad fruit fly problems, you will want to use this method for a good two weeks to make sure you've captured the majority of fruit flies. You might even want to use a few jars in different places. Before long, your kitchen will be back to normal.


1 comment:

Theresa said...

Sue, I wish I would of known about this after Katrina. There was such a mess of all the refrigerators and food everywhere, the fruit flies were awful. I would wonder how they got into things, made me crazy for a long time. Thanks for the tip!

Theresa