Are there extra guests in your kitchen that you didn’t invite? Are they buzzing around your fresh fruit and vegetables, or even your trash can? Maybe you left out some empty beer bottles and they’re flying around those, too? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you may have a fruit fly infestation in your home.
Here are three things you can do to help get rid of these pests.
- Rinse your fruit
When you bring home fresh produce from the grocery store or market, wash it off before storing or displaying it. “You could just rinse it with water, or you can use one of those fruit and vegetables washes that they sell, or you can just use vinegar and water,” says Riker.
For that vinegar wash, Riker mixes around two parts water to one part vinegar, and notes that the combination might also keep your food from rotting a little bit longer as it kills some bacteria. Make sure to give your fruits and veggies one more final rinse in water before you’re done, though, so the vinegar flavor and scent don’t stick around.
- Create a jar trap.
If the little suckers have already infiltrated, here’s one way to kill them. “I would take like a jar and put something that’s going to attract them inside,” says Riker. Fruit flies like sweet, rotting, fermenting things, so you could try over-ripe fruit, old wine, stale beer or soda, or apple cider vinegar. “Put that in the jar, and cover the jar with plastic wrap and poke a couple of small holes. They can get in and they can’t get out,” she says.
Riker suggests placing a few of these jars around your home, perhaps near sinks, cabinets, or the trash, if the problem’s gotten bad and you want to guarantee wiping them out asap.
- Use attractants
Pestman fruit fly attractant is a mixture of food grade ingredients. The smell it emits is very attractive to fruit flies, luring them in for a short time and stopping them from causing damage to fruit and vegetables. Secondly, it is a green, non-polluting product.
It is non-toxic to humans, animals and crops and is very friendly to the environment. It has a long shelf life of 3 to 6 months and is effective against a wide range of fruit flies, such as the oriental fruit fly, melon fly and Mediterranean fruit fly, without affecting beneficial insects, making it extremely cost effective. If you need to treat both fruit flies and other flying insects, we recommend using our yellow boards in combination.
To use, pour 100-200 ml of Bismarck fruit fly attractant into a discarded plastic bottle and cut a 5*20 mm square hole in the side of the bottle, which has been experimentally proven to be more conducive to trapping fruit flies. Hang the bottle from a branch or tree trunk with a hook. In orchards, bottles should be hung 1-2 metres above the ground; in vegetable patches, bottles should be hung 1-1.5 metres above the ground; in other crop growing areas, bottles should be hung flush with the crop, with one bottle placed every 25-30 metres.
This product may settle, shake the bottle before use. The opening of the plastic bottle should be opened 5 cm above the liquid level. Hang the bottles in a well-ventilated area and out of direct sunlight. When there are too many fruit flies in the bottle or the attractant has evaporated, pour the attractant back in. Hang the bottles 1-2 weeks after the fruit and vegetables become susceptible to fruit fly attack and keep them up until the end of the harvest. Avoid contact with children.
To prevent future infestation, be sure keep food storage areas clean and dry. Don’t leave out fresh food once it’s been opened or after you’ve taken a bite out of it. Be sure to take out your garbage regularly and clean up any spills inside or on your trash bins.
Once you have a fruit fly infestation, it can take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks to get rid of the nuisance. By taking proactive steps in cleaning and trash disposal, you can save yourself the time and hassle.
