How to get rid of fruit flies with regular vinegar

Índice Show

Why Fruit Flies Everywhere Love Vinegar
The Best Fruit Fly Trap with White Vinegar
Using Apple Cider Vinegar To Kill Fruit Flies
Make a Fruit Peel Jar
Use a Wine Bottle
A Trap for the Ages
Get Rid of Fruit Flies With a White Vinegar Fruit Fly Trap
But Where Do Fruit Flies Even Come From?
Stop The Problem Before It Starts

The magic word to catch fruit flies: vinegar. Any quick internet search on how to get rid of fruit flies will give you a slew of articles and tips glazed with this household staple. Why?

Why Fruit Flies Everywhere Love Vinegar

Vinegar is an ideal meal for fruit flies: totally fermented organic matter. Because fruit flies will always zoom toward the acidity of broken-down natural materials, they can’t resist the scent.

For fruit flies, vinegar acts as Kryptonite: they fly right into an open container of it, and then drown themselves in the liquid, attempting to consume it through their mouthparts.

The Best Fruit Fly Trap with White Vinegar

In order to make the perfect trap for fruit flies, all you really need is a glass and some plastic wrap.

You can use a jar and a lid if you’ve got that lying around, but in terms of bare-bones traps, it’s not necessary.

Pour some white vinegar into the glass and cover it with plastic wrap.
Poke a few small holes in the plastic so that the scent can emanate out, then poke a larger hole in the center of the plastic for the fruit flies to get in.
Add a few drops of dish soap to act as a glue and keep them stuck inside the vinegar.
They’ll follow their noses to the source of the smell, but not be able to find their way back out again, eventually dying off inside the glass.

If you end up using the jar and lid, just poke holes in the lid as directed above.

Using Apple Cider Vinegar To Kill Fruit Flies

Not all vinegar is created equal in the monstrous red eyes of the fruit fly.

Apple cider vinegar is perfect: it’s fruit that has been distilled to the point that it is festering liquid. White vinegar can be used to catch fruit flies, but they’ll be MUCH more inclined to fly into a trap if apple cider vinegar is used.

Make a trap as described in the previous paragraph, with a jar and plastic wrap.

Here’s a fun experiment that kids will love: try out both white vinegar and apple cider vinegar.

Make two traps and place them at opposite sides of the kitchen. See which can catch the most fruit flies in a day!

While vinegar is the absolute most effective way to easily catch and kill fruit flies, it’s not the only way. If you don’t have vinegar (or just can’t stand the smell), we’ve got you covered.

Make a Fruit Peel Jar

Much like the vinegar jar above, this homemade fruit fly trap relies on the insect’s sense of smell to reel them in.

This can work in a glass, a jar, or even a plastic Tupperware container.

Simply take the garbage pieces of fruit that you’d normally throw out (think banana peels, avocado skins/pits, the tops of strawberries, apple cores, etc.) and place them into a container.

Using either a custom-fitted lid or a piece of plastic wrap, poke holes for air and one large hole for entry. After a few hours, watch the fruit flies pile inside!

Use a Wine Bottle

Okay, this trap is as easy as it comes.

You don’t even really have to do anything! The next time you’re enjoying some wine, leave a bit in the bottom of the bottle.

While you wouldn’t think that wining and dining a fruit fly would be an effective method in controlling your fruit fly infestation, hear us out.

Fruit flies love all wine: from a nice Cabernet Sauvignon to a refreshing class of Chenin Blanc, they’ll dive headfirst into an open, uncorked wine bottle just sitting around.

Not only will your kitchen take on the musky, alluring aroma of a nice open bottle, but you’ll be catching all your annoying fruit flies at the same time.

A Trap for the Ages

You’ve heard of the Old Farmer’s Almanac, right?

Well, in an issue from the 1800s, this fruit fly trap trick came about.

It’s blissfully simple: just simmer a glass of milk, a cup of sugar, and a half-cup of raw pepper on the stove.

Once it cools, put the mixture into a bowl and set it on the counter top.

That’s it!

The fruit flies will sense the fermentation of the sugar in the milk, and the pepper works as the active ingredient to suffocate them; clogging up their mouth parts with thick granules.

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(Process takes about 30 seconds)

Fruit flies are unpleasant at best and downright nasty at worst, but they’re easily swayed away from your food with the right kind of trap.

Rather than put your faith in the hands of something manmade, give them what they’re really after: a piece of nature’s candy.

Fruit flies are smart, but you’re smarter. Once you set a trap made from things in your house, they’ll be powerless to resist.

Photo: CC0 Public Domain / Pixabay – Skeeze

Wherever fruits are harvested or stored in summer, fruit flies can’t be far behind. We’ll show you how to get rid of fruit flies with white vinegar to help you eliminate your fruit fly problem in a matter of days.

It’s best to avoid chemicals whenever possible when dealing with pests, especially around the food you eat. One natural and effective method to get rid of fruit flies is using a white vinegar fruit fly trap that you can put together with materials you probably already have at home.

Get Rid of Fruit Flies With a White Vinegar Fruit Fly Trap

This white vinegar fruit fly trap will help eliminate your problem in no time. (Photo: CC0 Public Domain / Pixabay - NatureFriend)

You might have already heard that you can get rid of fruit flies with white vinegar. It is indeed a simple and effective remedy, and you only need a few other ingredients besides the vinegar to make the trap.

For this white vinegar fruit fly trap, you’ll need:

a shallow bowl, container, or cup
1 tbsp. white vinegar
¼ c (apple) juice
a drop of liquid dish soap

Instructions:

Mix all the above items together in your container and fill any remaining space with water, almost to the brim. Place the container next to the fruit that is attracting the flies.

The odor of the white vinegar trap will quickly attract the little troublemakers. The soap decreases the water’s surface tension so that the flies cannot simply land on the surface; instead, they’ll fall through the liquid. You’ll be shocked how quickly you can get rid of fruit flies with white vinegar!

But Where Do Fruit Flies Even Come From?

Leaving ripe fruits out in the open for too long will attract fruit flies. (Photo: CC0 Public Domain / Pixabay – LubosHouska)

As far as pests go, it could be worse (imagine bed bugs, for example!). Fruit flies don’t really do anything, but they are definitely annoying. They tend to invade in swarms and take over your kitchen. To understand how to get rid of fruit flies, it’s important to understand why they appear in the first place:

During the warmer months, they are attracted by the scent of ripe fruit and come in through open windows.
Food waste in garbage and compost bins is irresistible to those flying nuisances.
Ripe bananas or damaged apples are just two of many optimal breeding grounds for fruit fly maggots.
It’s not uncommon to inadvertently bring fruit flies home with your produce – in larval form, developed at the grocery store.
With up to 400 eggs per laying female and a development cycle of just two weeks, the population can become a true plague in a very short amount of time.

Stop The Problem Before It Starts

To help prevent a fruit fly invasion before it starts, avoid leaving glasses of wine or fruit juice out in the open for too long. (Photo: CC0 Public Domain / Pixabay – CongerDesign)

We’ve shown you how to get rid of fruit flies with white vinegar, and it’s pretty simple, but preventing a fruit fly invasion before it starts is much easier. There are a few simple measures that you can take to help minimize the risk:

Eat or process fruits quickly; don’t keep them around out in the open.
Learn how to store apples, lemons, tomatoes, plums, and other fruits properly to prevent them from becoming overripe or spoiling.
If you have more bananas than you can handle, try freezing your bananas to make delicious banana nice cream later. Or you could slice them and put them in the oven to make banana chips.
Place extremely ripe or damaged fruit in the refrigerator, or simply turn them into something delicious, like vegan apple pie, homemade applesauce, or vegan lemon bars!
Take out your garbage and compost more often during the warmest months of the year.
Don’t leave open bottles or glasses of wine or fruit juice out for too long.
If possible, install screens on your windows.
Don’t store bananas or apples near other fruits, as this will speed up the ripening process.

By following these tips, hopefully, you won’t need our vinegar fruit fly trap at all!

This article was translated from German. You can view the original here: Fruchtfliegenfalle selber machen: So kannst du Obstfliegen loswerden.