After writing, how to get rid of bed bugs?, how to get rid of cockroaches?, how to get rid of wasps?, and how to get rid of fleas?, we are now writing the ways to make homemade fruit fly traps to get rid of fruit flies. Fruit flies or vinegar flies are the uninvited guests in your house. You can find them hovering in your drawing room, bedroom, kitchen, bathroom everywhere. It becomes quite irritating to see them flying around you, while you sleep, work or do anything. It become unbearable to see them sharing your food too. This article, will give you the best ways to make homemade fruit fly traps to get rid of fruit flies. They reproduce at a bizarre rate, which makes it quite difficult to get rid of them. But fruit flies alone are not alone responsible for their existence in your home.
They usually thrive in damp, soggy places like garbage bin, sink, toilet. They are attracted to fruits and other foods, mainly those which are rotten. When these fruit flies find such condition in your home, they catch the attention and land inside. So, it is necessary to maintain a proper hygiene of your home all the time to prevent fruit flies. Along with proper hygiene you can use fruit fly traps to get rid of fruit flies naturally and faster. Below we have mentioned some homemade fruit fly traps, which you can easily make yourself.
Few Fascinating Facts about Fruit Flies:
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Here are few fascinating facts about fruit flies that will upgrade your knowledge about fruit flies.
- Fruit flies feed on decaying food and can spread the illness like diarrhea.
- The female fruit fly lay their eggs on the cultivated fruits and vegetables.
- The Mexican fruit flies cause more risk to the agricultural fields as compared to the North American fruit flies.
Signs of Fruit Flies Infestation:
The most common and visible sign of fruit fly activity would be pupae and adult flies. You may see adult flies flying around trash cans, decaying fruit, and kitchen. The mature larvae of fruit fly crawl in the breeding ground having feeding material to pupate in a nearby spot that has a dry environment. Many times, people are mistaken for rodent or roach droppings, but after some time, it can be differentiated easily by a pair of horns at the end of pupae.
Homemade Fruit Fly Traps to Get Rid of Fruit Flies
1.) Use Fruit To Make Fruit Fly Trap
What can be more simple trap than a fruit trap to catch the fruit flies. It is one of the easiest fruit fly traps to catch flies. You just need some rotten fruits, plastic wrap and a glass pot to make this trap. Here is the method to use it.
- Just put a few pieces of ripened or nearly rotten fruit in the base of a glass pot. Wrap it with a plastic wrap. Make some tiny holes in the wrap with a pin. Place such traps in your house where these flies mostly congregate.
- Also, place one outside the main door. The flies will be lured into these traps, but won’t find how to get out. Now, it’s up to you to decide their fate. After getting rid of captured flies, rinse out, refill the pot, and repeat if needed.
2.) Dish Soap To Make Fruit Fly Trap
Dish soap when mixed with a sweet solution is not identified by fruit flies. The flies get attracted to the sweet solution and get caught in it. The composition of soap works as a poison for such annoying flies and ultimately kills them. Here is the method to make this trap.
- Fill a pot with a mixture of vinegar with sugar in any proportion. Add this solution in a dish soap and mix the solution well. Place the jar in the prone area.
- The flies will get attracted to the sweet and sour smell of the mixture and will consume it. This will kill them fast.
3.) Apple Cider Vinegar To Make Fruit Fly Trap
Fruit flies can not tolerate the smell of fermentation. As apple cider vinegar is composed by fermenting apples, it works great to eliminate fruit flies naturally. Just heat the vinegar in advance to spread more of its tempting fragrance.
- Heat a cup of apple cider vinegar and empty it into the jar. Make it shallow enough for the flies to drown.
- Add a few drops of dish soap. The dish soap will rupture the surface tension of the solute, so that the flies don’t just sit on top and fly away when they’re full.
- You can make it more difficult for flies to get out by inserting a rolled paper into the mouth of the jar to form a funnel shape.
- This will make easier for the flies to enter into the jar to feast vinegar, but will find it difficult to figure out how to get out. this will drown them in the jar only.
4.) Make Fruit Fly Trap From Milk
Well, we get this idea from the old farmer’s almanac. It was used since the 1850’s in New England. It is one of the great ways to trap the fruit flies. We can’t find out how they find this method, but they simply did a great job.
Mix one pint of milk, raw sugar and 2 ounces of ground pepper in a saucepan. Now, simmer it for 10 minutes. Stir this mixture effectively and pours it into a shallow dish. Now, place this dish at different places of your house, especially in the outdoors. Fruit flies will come to consume it. Ultimately, they will drown or suffocate. If they are landing on it and flying away, then pour a little amount of dish washing soap in it.
5.) Blow Dryer to Make Fruit Fly Trap
Blow dryer is one of the perfect fruit fly traps to take revenge from these annoying little flies. You just need a dryer and nothing else to make this trap work. Here is the method.
- Just take out your hair dryer and get at them. Turn your blower on and make the backside of the dryer facing flies.
- The dryer will create suction from the backside and will pull up the flies. This will burn flies in the inner heat of the dryer. Little harsh, but your flies would be gone pretty quickly.
6.) Incense To Make a Fruit Fly Trap
The fruit flies have a very small and delicate respiratory system. They need a constant supply of clean air, which means if they inhale irritant such as smoke, it may choke and kill them quickly. For this you can burn a few incense sticks to kill them.
- Burn some incense sticks and keep it in the area where flies mostly congregate.
- The smoke and perfume released by these sticks will escort flies into another world.
- Avoid keeping incense around infants and small kids.
7.) Wine To Make Fruit Fly Trap
Fruit flies gets attracted to red wine easily and congregate to it pretty quickly. They may either drown, or you can eliminate them as you wish to. It is also among the most easiest fruit fly traps. Here is the method.
- Leave a little bit of wine in the bottle and place it where flies congregate mostly.
- The flies will get attracted to it, and die a very merry death.
- Other than that, you can also keep it in a jar with plastic wrap.
- Poke the holes in the top if you want to.
8.) Sticky Trap to Prevent Fruit Flies
Seeing a lot of fruit flies may make you feel like punch them hard. Unfortunately, due to their small size it is incredibly difficult to punch them. To sort out this problem, you can make a homemade sticky punch.
- Take a disposable plate, and cover it with a thick film of cooking oil.
- As you swing the sticky plate the tiny flies will get trapped in the oil and stuck to the plate. This will ultimately kill them.
9.) Beer To Make Fruit Fly Trap
It seems fruit flies have an obsession for alcohol, not only just wine. Similarly to wine, you can use beer to trap these annoying flies. Its is also one of the best and easiest fruit fly traps to trap flies. Here is the method:
- Take a jar and fill it half with any type of beer. Puncture the lid several times to create 3 to 5 holes.
- Close the jar with punctured lid and leave the trap where the flies congregate more often.
- You will see flies, finding it easy to enter the jar, but difficult to get out of it.
- Replace the jar with more beer every time to catch more flies.
10.) Soda To Make Fruit Fly Trap
Soda is another one of the best fruit fly traps trap fruit flies. For this trap, you just need a bottle of soda. Here is the method to use it.
- Just take a bottle of soda and puncture a hole through the plastic cap.
- Pour out the soda bottle and leave only an inch or less in the bottom of the bottle.
- Replace the cap, flies will be drawn to the soda and get stuck in the bottle.
- Use Cola instead of plain soda as it contains sweet which will attract more flies to it.
11.) Basil Plant To Make Fruit Fly Trap
Fruit flies don’t like basil. They keep a distance from this plant as basil has a strong smell which flies can not tolerate. It may take time but it last for years. Plant basil in a small pot and place it in your house where find flies congregate more often. Keeping it near a basket of fruit will keep flies less likely to appear in the future.
12.) Lemongrass Oil to Trap Fruit Flies
This is one last trick you can opt to trap fruit flies. For this you will require lemongrass oil, a spray bottle and hot water. In the spray bottle, pour 10 drops of lemongrass oil and 4 tablespoons of hot water. All you will need to do is to spray the solution on the windowsills and doorways of your kitchen. And even when you notice the fruit flies hovering, you can directly spray on them. This will kill them instantly. Also, the spraying of the solution will give nice and refreshing fragrance to your kitchen.
Fruit Fly Control Methods:
It is quite difficult to control fruit fly infestation. They are large in numbers and they get attracted to sugary and organic materials. The best way to control fruit fly infestation is destroying their breeding and feeding grounds. They may even breed in decaying meat, large spills, and trash bins. So, keep food cans closed and also keep the dustbins covered in your home. If you find fruit fly infestation in your kitchen, then simply throw over-ripe and damaged fruits out of your kitchen. So, use these amazing fruit fly traps to get rid of fruit flies naturally and permanently.