How do you rid your home of fruit flies?

Question

I'm not sure if these gnat-like things are fruit flies or drain flies, but they are driving me nuts. I've cleaned, cleaned, and cleaned more. I've even put ammonia, ice, and baking soda down the drain. What else should I do?

Answer 1

These pesty little flies magically appear when fruit which is stored on the counter, etc. starts to ripen. Potatoes that are starting to rot also produce the same thing!

Once you've been infested, you must either be very vigilant and take care of the problem yourself or call a professional exterminator (which will be expensive and they'll probably have to visit your home more than once!).

The first thing to do is to store fruit in the regrigerator. Root vegetables that need to be store in a cool dark place (like potatoes) should be moved to the garage, outer storage closet, etc. Wash the counters and garbage cans in your house where fruit residue might be.

You'll need to get a good supply of small flying insect killer spray and wherever, whenever you see them - SPRAY! They will migrate from your kitchen to other rooms, so you're going to need to walk around with the spray can for a week or two and get them where they are! Even it it's just one, they'll multiply into a hundred very quickly, so keep that spray can in your hip pocket.

Remember that once the nasty little critters seem to be gone, they've probably laid eggs and another wave will present itself. Just be ready with your spray as soon as they appear so they won't have an opportunity to lay their eggs and perpetuate the cycle!

Buy an extra can or two of spray and recruit other family members to join the "war on insects." You have to be vigilant but make a game out of it and with a little patience, there'll be no more insects "flying the skies" of your home!

Answer 2

Just fill a small jar about 3/4 full of water and add 1 tablespoon of apple cider vinegar. Place the jar on you kitchen counter near a ripening fruit or ever better an overripe fruit. The gnats will investigate the jar and will be killed. To kill the gnat larvae in the soil use a natural organic product called Neem. Neem can be purchased in the garden shop. I got this info from a book I have called "Grandmother's Critter Ridder". Hope it helps.

Answer 3

I work in a lab that uses fruit flies, and we have bottles of apple juice around to trap the flies so escaped flies don't get in the wrong vials and contaminate people's experiments. I think they might have enthanol in them to kill the flies, but I'm not entirely sure about that. It's a bit gross, but it works pretty well. That would work in a house to get rid of flies that are already there, but the problem is it might also tend to attract more flies. So try putting apple juice traps outside, and don't leave any fruit out in the house. You could also try putting the traps inside and see what happens. To make the traps, just mix apple juice with rubbing alcohol (which you can get at most drug stores) and put cups of it around.

Of course, the most effective way to dispose of flies in the lab is to knock them out with carbon dioxide and dump them in a bottle of ethanol, but I'm not quite sure how that would work in a house. :)

Answer 4

Put your fruits and vegetables in the fridge. The ones in the air will die off in 3 days.

Organic fruits and vegetables don't have the wax that prevent the bugs in the skin from hatching. There is really no way to get rid of them once they are airborne. Luckily, they die in a few days.

Also, bleach is a very effective pesticide. Baking soda, ammonia and ice (WTF???) won't do anything. Those are all chemicals so watch how you mix them.

Answer 5

Did you recently buy a new house plant? We got fruit fly (actually fungus gnat) infestation from the contaminated soil in a house plant we bought. After we took ALL our house plants outside for a few days (and never bring them back in), the flies were all gone.

Answer 6

The only way i know of to get rid of fruit flies is to leave a glass of red wine out. They seem to love wine so much they drown!

Answer 7

Sanitation is the first thing to look at - get rid of anything that is laying around your yard our house that lets them have a breeding ground.

Next would be to use a trap for them. This is better than insecticides because it doesn't get chemicals on your fruit.

After that would be insecticides.

Here's a good article about it - http://www.doyourownpestcontrol.com/fruit_fly.htm

And here's a site with traps that might help -

http://www.alwaysbrilliant.com/?SC=98773&PD=45581&PID=839&AG=262327680&MT=3&gclid=CPOEoZTc04UCFQiFHgodInWRLw

Good luck with getting rid of them.

Answer 8

We buy these little plastic pieces, they look like cheese to me and you put them by your potted plats and or open air, the gnats will be gone in days. I don't know what they are called but you can find them in hardware stores.

Answer 9

put the fruits into somekind of shiny glass closets, and the flies will think it's nothing but a clean space, and they'll dive in.

Answer 10

Don't leave fresh fruit or vegetables on the countertop, keep them in the fridge. Empty your kitchen garbage regularly.