Wednesday, March 30, 2016

How to Trap and Get Rid of Fruit Flies


How to Kill Fruit Flies with Two Ingredients

Fruit fly trap
Kill Fruit Flies with Dish Soap and Cider Vinegar

How to Kill Fruit Flies
Those pesky little buggers can often be brought into your home on the vegetables and fruit you buy. There are many solutions offered for fruit fly traps to help you solve your problem.  A quick Google search this morning found these products.

Fruit fly traps
Fruit Fly Traps
Holy cow, $99 for a fruit fly trap?  I can save you a whole lot of your hard-earned cash today.

My solution is the best.  Here's why:
  • It's a healthy, family-friendly solution.
  • It works quickly.

Two-Step No Pesticide Fruit Fly Trap

1.  Put one-half cup of apple cider vinegar and a squirt of dish liquid (Dawn doesn't seem to work as well as Ajax brand) into a small glass or plastic container. Do NOT stir.

2.  Place the container wherever you see the most fruit flies.  Walk away.  That's it.

Here's what my fruit fly trap looked like at my house after an hour.

Fruit fly trap after one hour
Fruit Fly Trap After One Hour
But wait!  It gets better.  The next morning my fruit fly trap looked like this.

The reason this works so well is that the apple cider attracts the fruit flies and the squirt of dish soap traps them so they can't fly away.

It's best not to use a highly scented dish detergent.  You want the fruit flies to seek out the apple cider. You don't want the scent of your soap to interfere with that.

Fruit fly trap after 24 hours
Fruit Fly Trap After Twelve Hours
Remember to refresh your trap each day until your fruit fly problem is completely resolved.

You may need to repeat the process because fruit flies have a life cycle that may be several weeks long.  The females lay as many as one hundred eggs a day and up to two thousand eggs in their lifetime.

 I've been using this simple, effective fruit fly killing method for five years.  Now I mix up my vinegar and dish liquid concoction at the first sight of a fruit fly.  It eliminates my fruit fly problem so quickly I wouldn't think of trying anything else.

If this doesn't work for you or you don't want to do it yourself you can order some traps.

I also have a no pesticide method to control ants in your home.  You can read about killing ants here.

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  1. Replies
    1. Yes, it is, Savvy Working Gal. Thanks for pinning.

  2. Wow! That's awesome. I have just been using the apple cider vinegar and it's been working, but the dish liquid could help me get more of those pesky things.

    1. I agree you'll get better results with a little squirt of dish liquid. Give it a try.

  3. That is nice and simple and not costing the earth. Who would guess that it was so easy to trap and kill fruit flies.
    Blogger's Pit Stop

  4. Hi Kathleen. I love low cost solutions to annoying problems. In this case I especially like that we can take care of fruit flies with no pesticides! Thanks for visiting.

    1. Thank you so much..I bought traps on sale but it's not enough they are every where and now I know why. I only use dawn because of the grease cutting . Could I use liquid hand soap? Thanks

    2. I only use Dawn can I use hand soap? I'm currently over run with these little buggers. I've never had an issue like this before...Thank you

  5. The flies are just sitting on the rim of my container and not going down toward the liquid mixture. I am using sunlight soap, maybe it's not the best one to use.

  6. The flies are just hanging out on the rim of my container and not getting stuck in the liquid mixture. Maybe I am using the wrong dish soap, I am using sunlight.

    1. Hi Danika. I'm not familiar with Sunlight dish soap. I know I have trouble with the solution when I use Dawn. I prefer to use Ajax brand for this. I usually choose the one that is orange and it works like a charm. Just a tiny squirt of dish soap does it. The soap should not mask the scent of the cider vinegar. I hope this helps.

  7. Dose this work with beer flys

  8. Could I use All free and clear laundry soap instead. I think the dish soap I have on hand may be too fragrant. I have palmolive with oxy. Anyone try it with that?

    1. My best advice to you, and anyone who wonders if a liquid soap they have on hand will work, is to give it a try. Remember to use just a drop or two of the soap, depending on the size of the container. The soap creates a very thin film across the top of the cider that traps the fruit flies. The cider attracts them to the mixture so you just don’t want the scent of the soap to interfere. Hope that helps.

