This is Best Hack for Getting Rid of Fruit Flies Quickly and Effectively

Fruit flies and I go way back to my high school biology class and a unit on genetics. We raised Drosophila melanogaster, the common fruit fly, in little Petri vials. Then we’d anesthetize them so we could look at them through the microscope to see how our genetic predictions sized up with the number and gender of babies born overnight. It was great fun.

The most amazing thing, however, was not how easy it was to understand dominant traits and inherited characteristics but how fast those suckers multiplied.

Keen sense of smell

Fruit flies live to find fermenting food. They can detect the smell of ripe fruits and vegetables from miles away. If there’s a bowl of fruit on your kitchen counter, there’s probably a swarm of fruit flies looking for a way into your home to get to it. Because these insects are so tiny, they can get in through a tear in window screens or crevices around windows or doors.

They reproduce

Before you know it, you’re dealing with a full-fledged fruit fly infestation.
 While I remember them as being so adorable in their little Petrie dishes, fruit flies are anything but cute buzzing around your head or dive-bombing anything that could be considered edible. Even a single critter can be so annoying.

 

Common sense

Conventional wisdom suggests that if you are careful to remove every trace of detectable food source, you will have no fruit flies. Don’t believe it. For days this one tiny drosophila was driving us crazy at EC Central. I promise you that I scoured this place upside down and inside out to make sure there was not a single morsel of food out in the open. That sent me on a mission to put an end to this once and for all.

This is it

I tried several home remedies that didn’t nab that fly. Then I found it—the single, most effective fruit fly trap. It is quite simple:

You’ll need:

✅  small bowl

✅  unfiltered apple cider vinegar (no substitute, please)

✅  dish soap

✅  plastic wrap

First, make sure that you have no fruit or another food source sitting out or otherwise hiding in open trash and garbage cans.

Next, assemble these three items: 
A small bowl, plastic wrap, and unfiltered apple cider vinegar. Any other type of vinegar will not work.

Must be ACV

Pour some vinegar into the bowl. Add one drop of dish soap (required to break the surface tension of the vinegar so the fruit fly falls in).

• MORE: 20 Surprisingly Effective Ways to Use Apple Cider Vinegar

Plastic cover

Cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap, pulling the wrap back just a tiny bit at one edge to allow for entry. 
That’s it. Set it out on the counter and go about your business.

It took a few hours to nail that little pest who flew in to enjoy his final meal. And while I was quite sure there was only one fly driving us crazy, apparently, by way of a headcount, it was a very large family.

 

 

Since then, I have tested a number of fruit fly traps, and have determined that the one described and pictured above is the most effective and easiest way to deal with a to keep a fruit fly infestation during these hot days of summer!

One more thing: I removed the plastic from my fruit fly trap to get the best photo possible!

• MORE: These 7 Plants Are Natural Repellents Keep Fruit Flies Out of Your Home

 

 

 

---

 

 

 

More from Everyday Cheapskate

Please keep your comments positive, encouraging, helpful, brief,
and on-topic in keeping with EC Commenting Guidelines

Caught yourself reading all the way 'til the end? Why not share with a friend.