Fruit flies are incredibly insidious, and the methods for how to get rid of fruit flies vary depending on the seriousness of your infestation. However, don’t worry, because no matter how crazy they may be driving you, there are many effective methods for how to get rid of fruit flies, so there is definitely hope.

How to Get Rid of Fruit Flies – Prevention

The easiest and best way to get rid of fruit flies is by simply preventing them from investing your home to begin with. Fruit flies, much like their name implies, are attracted by rotting fruit and other kinds of food. Mostly, like fruit, it will be food that has some element of sweetness or a syrupy quality. However, that is not always the case. They can actually be attracted by any type of food that are left out. There were, when taking preventative measures, it’s good to be aware that while they are particularly attracted to sweet things, if not entirely limited to that.

Clean All Dishes Right Away

Fruit flies are attracted to old and rotting food. Even a small amount of rotten food left out can attract a fruit fly infestation, so it’s important that you all dishes right away, not even leave them out overnight. He lives are very stubborn, and difficult to get rid of. If you have had in the past or are trying to get rid of them currently, it is even more important than normal to be extremely diligent about winding up every single tiny piece of food and not leaving out any dishes with even small amounts of food clinging to them. Fruit flies will be attracted and once they have laid their eggs it is a long and arduous process to get rid of them. It’s much easier to simply do dishes as they arise and not leave them sitting in the sink.

Take Out Trash Regularly

Anyway all can, it’s not a bad idea to take out the trash every single day so that it is never left overnight. Also, it helps to have the type of trashcan that actually seals every time you shop only, as opposed to the type that just has a lid that rests on top, or the type that doesn’t have a lid that all. People feel like once they put their trash into the garbage can, it dealt with, it’s put away. However, fruit flies don’t discriminate between food that is left sitting out on the counter or food that is left sitting out in an open trashcan. They view it all as simply being accessible, and it will attract them. Therefore you can take preventative measures by not leaving food out, even if it is technically put in the trash. You can get a trashcan which has a lid that seals every time you close it, and you can take the trash outside every single night before going to bed.

Don’t Leave Fruit Out and Uncovered

Although a lot of people like to have a fruit bowl sitting out on their dining room table or kitchen table, this is a classic thing that attracts fruit flies. If you like the aesthetics of having a fruit bowl on your kitchen or dining room table, then you need to get a clear but airtight cover for the bowl so that the fruit is not exposed to the air as they ripens and then sits there. The best choice though is to simply keep your fruit in the refrigerator. In this way, fruit flies have no access to it whatsoever. Fruits, like bananas, that need to be left out in the air to ripen and be stored in the refrigerator after they have ripened.

Clean Your Drain With a Bottle Brush

One of the places where rotting food accumulates that people don’t think of very often is inside your drain or garbage disposal. Even the smallest amount of food can attract fruit flies, so even the small flecks of food that are left behind after the garbage disposal runs can contribute to your fruit fly problem. Also, the scum that accumulates in your drain over the course of time is a perfect breeding ground for fruit flies. In fact, this is where they often lay their eggs. The best way to clean your drain and garbage disposal is with a bottle brush. Using hot water and kitchen soap or dishwashing liquid, give it a good scrubbing every week or so. This will free and wash away any small bits of food which were left behind from the garbage disposal and will also keep any residue from building up inside the drain. After you have cleaned your garbage disposal and drain with the bottle brush, make sure that you clean the bottle brush thoroughly with hot water and soap, otherwise it becomes just as big a liability as your drain was.

Clean the Exposed Areas of Your Refrigerator

One overlooked place that food residue tends to collect is the exposed areas of your refrigeration unit. Make sure that you regularly clean the plastic seal around the door of your refrigerator with a damp cloth and that you also regularly clean out the evaporation pan, if your refrigerator has one.

Keep Air Circulating in Problem Areas

Fruit flies cannot alight in a crosswind, so it’s a good idea to keep up and regularly blowing over particular problem areas. When the fan is blowing, the fruit flies will not be able to land, and so they will head out for easier prey, preferably in someone else’s house!

Be Careful to Wipe Up Crumbs

there are many reasons why you want to be diligent about wiping up crumbs in your kitchen and anywhere that food is kept. They can attract not only fruit flies but many other types of insects as well. True, they aren’t the classic attractants for fruit flies because they don’t have that element of sweetness that fruit flies a love, however they absolutely will attract fruit flies, so make sure that you are diligent about wiping up every speck of food debris and crumbs every single time you prepare or eat food. Especially if you are in the process of dealing with the fruit fly infestation, even if it seems as if it’s over, the tiniest amount of food, even a crumb being, left out can start the infestation all over again. It’s just not worth it.

Rinse All Soda and Beer Cans Before Discarding

The little bit of sweet liquid residue that resides in the bottom of soda and beer cans is precisely the kind of food that fruit flies thrive on. Even if you are taking out your trash regularly and keeping it tightly covered with a lid containing a seal, why tempt the fruit flies to even come and try to get in in the first place? Not when it takes mere seconds to rinse out your beer and pop cans before tossing them in the garbage!

How to Get Rid of Fruit Flies – Traps

Glass of Wine or Bottle of Beer

If you leave a glass of wine or a bottle of beer sitting out overnight with only a little left in the bottom of the glass or bottle, this will act as an attractant for the fruit flies. The fruit flies then become trapped in the sticky liquid and drown. In the morning, you then simply rinse out the glass of wine or recap the bottle of beer and throw it away.

Plastic Wrap Over a Bowl

Take a bowl and put something sweet and sticky in the bottom of it to attract the fruit flies. This could be a bit of jam, a rotten piece of fruit, a little bit of juice, wine, beer, even cider vinegar. You could even simply mix a tablespoon of sugar with water and leave it in the bottom of the bowl. Next, stretch a piece of plastic wrap over the entire mouth of the bowl and secure it with rubber bands or a piece of string tied around the side of the bowl over the plastic wrap. Poke small holes, about five or six, in the top of the plastic wrap. Fruit flies will be attracted by the sweetness of whatever you’ve placed in the bottom of the bowl, they will crawl in through the holes to get to what they are attracted to the bottom of the bowl, and they won’t be able to get back out. For this reason, don’t make too many holes and don’t make the holes too big or they will simply be able to fly back out again once they’ve gone inside.

Ziploc Bag Trap

This trap is incredibly simple. All you need to do is put a slice of apple in the bottom of the Ziploc bag, it can be the regular sandwich bag size or the larger freezer bag size, it doesn’t matter. Seal the Ziploc bag, all except for a 1 inch section at the end that you leave open. Crimp in that section so it leaves a small opening for the fruit flies to get through. Like the plastic wrap trap, the idea is that the flies find their way in but they cannot find their way out. This trap is especially easy to discard, when you come down in the morning and find the flies in the bag surrounding the apple, all you have to do is seal the last inch of the bag and throw it away.

Funnel Trap

For this type of trap, you only need a mason jar, a piece of paper, and piece of tape. Simply place a piece of rotten fruit or something else that attracts fruit flies in the bottom of the jar. This would include sticky sweet drinks like fruit juice, soda, or wine, apple vinegar, or sugar-water. Then, wrap the piece of paper to form a tube-like funnel and the piece of tape to secure it. Place the funnel in the mason jar with the point facing down. The fruit flies will fly down through the funnel to get the sweet bait and won’t be able to fly back out again. If the sides of the funnel aren’t flush with the lip of the mason jar, you can secure the funnel with tape or art gum.

Liquid Soap Mixture

If you make a mixture of sugar, water, and liquid dish soap (or any attractant, such as wine or fruit juice with liquid dish soap) this is especially effective. The reason for this is that the sweet liquid draws the fruit flies in (you’ve heard the phrase “like flies to honey” – this is the principal underlying this method!), and the dishwashing liquid makes the mixture thick and sticky. It will catch an even higher percentage of fruit flies than just leaving out the sweet liquid alone will. It’s very effective.

Milk, Sugar, and Pepper Mixture

This concoction, while effective, does require a little bit of cooking. Not a whole lot though! Mix up 1 part sugar and 2 parts milk, and sprinkle in some ground black pepper. It helps make the aroma stronger to attract the flies. Bring to a simmer (not quite to a boil – boiling denatures the protein in the milk) and stir for 30 seconds to one minute on medium-high heat. Then pour the mixture into a shallow baking pan or caserole dish and leave sitting out overnight.

How to Get Rid of Fruit Flies – Methods

Peppermint Extract

Placing a bottle of peppermint extract open near the areas that were most heavily infested can be quite effective in preventing a reoccurance of your infestation. You can even twist a small square of paper towel into a tight wick and place one end into the peppermint extract, creating a sort of diffuser. However, this step is not strictly necessary. Peppermint extract has a strong, distinctive aroma and will do a fine job of permeating the air on its own!

Lemongrass Oil

Spraying affected areas with diluted lemongrass oil (two to three drops per every eight ounces of distilled water) is very effective in keeping re-infestations from occuring. And much like the peppermint extract, it has the side benefit of smelling simply lovely!

Place Your Fruit Fly Traps in a Warm Location

All of the mixtures and traps recommended above for getting rid of fruit flies relying in some way on the aroma of the trap spreading throughout the house and attracting the fruit flies. Heat helps smells to spread. Therefore, it only stands to reason that if you place the mixtures in a warm place, that warmth will help the smell to spread farther and it will attract and trap more fruit flies but if that were placed in a cool location.

Suck Up Fruit Flies with a Vacuum Cleaner

This is certainly not a solution to entirely get rid of your infestation, but it definitely helps in the short term, particularly when you find that you have a large surprise infestation. Fruit flies are easily sucked up in the hose attachment of the vacuum cleaner, and they cannot survive the trip through the vacuum cleaner hose to the bag. You can easily start a large number of them straight out of the air and into the vacuum cleaner bag. As stated, this is not a long-term solution, but it certainly can help to alleviate the situation until you consult the situation permanently.

How to Get Rid of Fruit Flies – Commercial Products

Fly Traps

Commercially available fly traps, although not specifically formulated for fruit flies, will work on fruit fly infestations just fine. The attractant used in the flytrap strips will attract fruit flies just like they do standard houseflies or drain flies. However, there are several drawbacks to using flytraps. First of all, they are incredibly ugly, aesthetically speaking. And this is true even before they’ve trapped any flies. Once they’re dead flies sticking to the flypaper, they are quite a bit more unattractive even than they were before. Secondly, fly traps do not merely killed the fruit flies by trapping them, rather they contain a poison which hastens the death of the fruit flies. For this reason, it is incredibly important that you keep them out of reach of kids and pets. In fact, if you have kids or pets in the house I would highly recommend that you choose another method of getting rid of fruit flies. Even as a good method for how to get rid of fruit flies, it simply is not worth the risk when the consequences can be so deadly.