If you love fruits and veggies, then you know what a nuisance fruit flies can be. Pesky fruit flies can find their way to your produce, no matter how clean it is. Fruit flies are very small and swarm around fruits and vegetables on the counter or in the garbage – we’ve even seen clouds of fruit flies gathering around empty beer cans! With short life cycles, adult flies wreak havoc and breed at a staggering rate. Fruit flies are attracted to damp areas and are a regular feature in trash cans, compost piles and kitchen sinks.

Here are some easy ways to get rid of fruit flies:

1. The vinegar trap is a tried and tested homemade fruit fly trap. Apple cider vinegar often attracts fruit flies and the scent drives them towards the jar in droves. You can heat up the apple cider vinegar and dish soap alongside an overripe fruit. This creates a perfect fruit fly breeding ground but with a twist. You can then pour the stuff into a container and keep the flies concentrated at the funnel on top of the jar. The flies can go in and get enticed only to get trapped and killed without a way out!
2. You can get a mason jar and fill it with overripe fruit. Cover the lid with a plastic wrap and use a toothpick to puncture the top. The fruit works as a bait at the bottom of the container, but the flies get trapped inside the jar once they enter.
3. Fruit flies simply love wine and you can use this to your advantage. Using an empty wine bottle, you can place this filled in with wine to a quarter and leave the cork out of the neck of the jar. Place this near the source of the flies and wait. These fruit flies may enter in droves and drink the mixture only to drown in it!
4. You can take a pint of milk and a quarter pound of raw sugar along with black pepper in good measure. You need to heat the mixture in saucepan and simmer for about 10 minutes. Place the mixture in a container and keep it near the fruit fly sources. This will vastly reduce the fly populations and cause them to die.
5. Finally, prevention is better than cure and it’s necessary that you throw out the overripe produce and store all food in the fridge and not on the outside. You also need to wash produce and remove the incidence of larvae. Taking the garbage out regularly and cleaning spoiled food and fruit juice is a must. Since most of these flies lurk as fungus gnats, you need to keep your topsoil in the garden fresh and tilled.

Try out these effective remedies and banish these red eyed mini- monsters from your home!

If you need professional help with fruit flies or other insects,
give us a call at (813) 500-4735 or contact us here on the website.