Fruit Flies! - Granbury,TX

Hey H.! I feel your pain, fruit flies are so annoying! My husband is co-owner of a pest control company. I asked him and he said that fruit flies are usually attracked to ,well, fruit! Sounds simple, but it can be complicated. Do you keep fruit out on the counter? Is there anyway something could be rotten and you don't know about it? Since you're expecting, I would not recommend a bug bomb, but our company does use chemicals that would be safe for you and the baby, as well as your 13mo. If you'd like to talk to me on the phone, personal message me, or you can look up our site, alliancetermite.vpweb.com
I'll be glad to make SURE you get a great deal since you're my fellow mamasource.com- er!
Good luck! Let me know how it goes

1 mom found this helpful

Hi H.,

We have had occasional infestations of fruit flies and here's what we have done that is not only very effective, but non-toxic.

Take a jar and fill about an inch-worth's with orange juice. Cover with plastic wrap and then poke a few holes-maybe three or four at the most-in the plastic wrap. The flies will be attracted to the orange juice and will fly in through the holes, but will be unable to get out. Just let it sit on your countertop. It works really well.

You could also go to your local nursery and purchase a Venus Flytrap. These plants love fruit flies. We've done this as well and it really works.

Hope you get rid of the pests-they are truly annoying!

All the best,
D. L.

make a simple fruity fly trap
just in a little container or small cup that you don't want to keep it put about 1/2cup cider vinegar and about 2 teaspoon of dish detergent and the flys will drown there

We had the same problem. We got rid of them organically by getting one of those sticky bug traps and placing fruit on it. We placed the trap on the counter for a couple of days. We found a bunch of dead fruit flies every morning. They soon disappeared and we have not had a problem since. Good luck!

In addition to all the great help you already have received, be sure to clean your sink drains with vinger or use the baking soda/vinger/hot water technique. I found those pesky fruit flies seem to migrate to my drain. Once I cleaned them, they went away! Good Luck....

E.

I had the same issue a couple of weeks ago. I found out they were coming up from the drains in the kitchen and bathroom. A friend of mine had the same problem and told me to pour straight bleach down all the drains and tolits. Let it sit for a hour or so and then run HOT water down everything. I boiled the water just to be on the safe side. Then I bleached all the counters and everything in sight. I have not had any problems since. Good luck!!!

Ew... I have this prob. too! Last week I discovered a cheap solution that worked for me! A small squirt bottle filled with water and dish detergent. I spritzed down all my fruit in the fruit basket and anytime I saw one of the pesky buggers I shot him down! I have NONE this morn! Yipee! This is a very irritating problem - hope this helps you too!

Fly paper strips. A half dozen will cost you a dollar.

Mine usually come from fruit left in the disposal to grind up later, rotten potatoes in the bottom of the pantry, that last banana, or a banana peel in the bottom of a trash can.

I've tried apple cider vinegar with some dish detergent recently. I can't really tell if it worked or not. We even had a swarm around our frigerator's water and ice dispenser. That culprit was stagnant water in the overflow tray.

try to the suggestions involving apple cider...they work.

You may have some still water in your drains. You can also have this checked as this sometimes is the cause of the fruit flies as they like moisture. I had this problem last year and that is what we discovered. We cleaned out the drains and I haven't had the same problem in a while.

Take a wide mouth, shallow glass (the one they call a whiskey glass) and put about 1 inch of apple cider vinegar in it. Add 2 - 3 drops of dishwashing liquid. Gently swirl to BARELY mix it...no bubbles. Set the glass on the counter where you see the most fruit flies. In a day or so, you will start to see dead flies in the liquid. You may set out more than one glass if they are in different areas. Change out the liquid a couple of times a week once you start "catching" them.
Good luck.

I googled getting rid of fruit flies and many things came up here is one link I checked out. Good Luck.
http://www.wikihow.com/Get-Rid-of-Fruit-Flies

I managed to bring fruit flies home this summer in some fruit from our grocery store. As you mentioned, they about drove me crazy. I got rid of the offending fruit but the remaining bugs were still around. There were probably 8 to 10 flies and I didn't know how to get rid of them. Our 4 year old loves the canned, single serving mandarin oranges. I strained the oranges out of the container for him and then left the juice in the container out on the counter. The fruit flies love it and once they were all in the container, I swooped in with paper towels over the top and threw them in the trash and right outside to the bin. I haven't seen any since. I made sure to watch for fruit flies at the store and any time I see these flies on a display, I avoid that section like the plague.

Hi H.!

I am having a TERRIBLE time with fruit flies right now!!! I've done the bowls of vinegar - it has caught 100s...MANY MANY 100s of them....however, they won't go away! So, today I called my pest control guy (wonderful man, small company, great work - if you ever need a pest control person, Abrock Pest Control is GREAT). Anyway, we talked for a while and he told me to try using the vacuum and vacuum them out of the air! He said it pulls their wings off!! So, I removed my vinegar bowls (which he said he has never tried by the way) and vacuumed - it is looking much better!! I'm wondering if the vinegar bowls kept them coming around??? Anyway, I've just started this today...hopefully this will take care of it!!! Good luck! Email me if you find another solution!

http://www.wikihow.com/Get-Rid-of-Fruit-Flies

Red wine with a drop of dish soap in it. Cheaper dish soap works better, we found. Worked like a charm.

Also, we ran tons of water down our disposal and several cupfuls of ice through it. We seemed to have them in our disposal.

I had the same problem years ago. I tried everything. It lasted a long time! Well, I came across a bag of potatos that I had bought a while back in the pantry covered with walmart plastic bags. A huge swarm came out when I uncovered it. When I disposed it, the fruit flies stopped coming around. It is thriving in something moist in your house. It may not be in the kitchen but somewhere else.

Fruit flies hate cool rooms.When it's warm and moist they will stick around.Keep the room nice and cool, about 70-75 degrees if possible.

No need to use toxic bug sprays around your kids - - one chemical was linked to childhood leukemia, yet the Home Depots and Lowes stores in our country were not required to remove it from their shelves. They were allowed to continue selling the products until existing stock ran out.

Fruit flies travel to your home on stuff you buy at the grocery store. The fruit fly eggs (tiny, brown things) could already have been laid on the bananas before they ever left the Chiquita plantation in Central America!

When you see adults, just use the apple cider vinegar or wine trick. Then look for places where those adults may have laid their eggs, like the other moms mentioned - - look for stinky potatoes in the pantry, or green, fuzzy oranges in the school supplies!! ((I am very happy to know I am not the only one to discover LOST produce in the house!))

Apple cider vinegar is a good thing for your health, too. Read the label on the BRAGG'S bottle.

Call a florist and get their advice. I called regarding gnats and they were very helpful.

Hi H.,
If you put some sugar in a glass with water leave it on the cabinet in the kitchen. The flies will go into the glass to get the water and die.
Good luck.
Mk

We had the same thing happen, but what it was was a potatoe that had rolled to the back of the pantry we didn't see... See if you can tell where they're coming from and see if anyting rolled out of sight... As soon as we found it, they were gone!

Make sure they are not drain flies. Drain flies can come up from your drains like in your kitchen. I am not sure how you treat them but at least you would find out where they were coming from. Hope this helps.

The most creative solution I've heard for this is a Pitcher plant. Attractive and eats bugs!

H.,

I have this problem every now and then. I put out 3-4 small cups of apple cidar vinegar (filled about 1/4 full) with a few drops of dishwashing liquid stirred in. They gravitate towards it, but you need to be vigilant in stirring it 1-2 times a day and changing them out every other day or so. When I've forgot to stir mine together throughout the day, they don't come to it. The first time I did it, I counted almost 70 fruit flies in one cup!!! I had no idea I had that many! Good luck!

Get a 2oz. spray bottle (Wal-Mart or Target) get some distilled water and 100% pure lemon oil (Wholefoods or other health food store) put 10 drops of oil in the bottle fill with the water. Shack before each spray and the cool thing is if they are on your fruit (like the problem I had last year) you can spray them and it doesn't mess up your food.

I had a fruit fly problem a few months back and had a horrible time getting rid of them as well. I (by accident of course) left a bottle of wine (about 1/4 full) open on the counter by my sink (which is where my fly problem was) and I noticed the fruit flies would go in there and not be able to fly back out. Once I realized what was happening, I left the bottle on my counter for two days and my fruit fly problem was gone, they all flew in the bottle. I swear there were like 30 flies floating in that merlot!

Do you have house plants? Some plants get fruit flies and gnats that hatch in the soil. Spray vinegar in a spray bottle on the plants daily until they stop hatching.

Do you have houseplants? If so, they could be coming from the soil. Water your plants with a soap dilution (1 tsp of dishwashing soap in your water). This will take care of them. You will want to do this every now and then to keep them at bay & your plants like the soap.

it stinks but putting a small bowl out with apple cider vinegar might help. They are attracted to it, get in there, and then drown. I also have put up one of those sticky fly hanging things that is a long strip that hangs from the ceiling and many of them get caught in that. Good luck!!

You might need to call an exerminator. My friend had a problem once, and the bugs were coming from her store bought bread! I know it sounds crazy. A representative from the bread company drove to her house almost right away to pick it up.

Set out a glass with a little red wine in the bottom -- you do not need a full glass -- besides, who wants to waste that much wine!!! Works like a charm!

Put some fruit (rotten banana works well) or even apple cider vinegar in a jar or bowl and cover it tightly with some plastic wrap. Then poke some holes in the plastic with a fork. The fruit flies will be able to get in but won't be able to get out.

Also be sure to keep your fruits and veggies in the refrigerator. Take the trash out often and you may even want to do a full cleaning of the sink drains (pour some baking soda down the drains and then slowly pour in vinegar).

Good luck!

Kelly hit the nail on the head. Believe it or not, red wine! Leave a glass out on the counter overnight, and you'll see all those little critters floating in it the next morning. I guess they just get drunk and can't get out :) haha

My husband is a bartender and he said you need to call an exterminator.....call one that works for bars(a commercial exterminator). there is a treatment that they use that sterilizes them...they have a very short life but reproduce at REDICULOUS rates...so sterilizing them gets rid of the prob....also....make sure you look around at where you buy your fruit and veggies cause they follow you home....so if you see a bunch at your grocery i would hold off or find somewhere else to buy them....hope this helps!!!

Small cup of vinegar with a drop of dish soap in it placed where the flies commonly hang out.

You may want to call Central Market and talk to the produce department. I hope they can help.

Hi H.,

I had this same problem a couple of months ago and it drove me crazy!! I tried spray as well and it didn't work. I went online and did a little research and found that you can use vinegar or use an insect bomb (which I didn't want to do with a 6 year old and newborn twins). What it said to do was put small bowls (I used the rubbermaid bowls that I have a tone of and never use) filled half full of white vinegar. Then cover the bowl with foil and poke holes in it. The fruit flies are attracted to the vinegar. It took a few days, but I saw them flying toward it and finally they were gone!! I put several out on the countertops and in the pantry. I know it sounds crazy, but it worked for us!!

Good luck getting rid of your unwanted visitors!!
M.

I was told by a janitor at a hospital that if you leave a glass of red wine out that they are attracted the smell of the wine when they get close they fall in.

I am actually having the same problem currently. I got rid of them earlier this summer, but they came back with avengeance. Our exterminator told us to pour bleach down our kitchen sink drains and then plug them up. This worked for us, but I hope next time to use something a little less harsh. One thing I have noticed is that they gravitate towards bananas no matter if they are green or very ripe so keep those sealed if at all possible.

Check your house plants! The fruit flies might be using the damp soil as a staging ground. Spray the soil with a dilute solution of water plus a few drops of dish soap.

You can also use this spray to treat for spider mites or aphids indoors or outdoors. Make sure to spray the underside of the leaves as well as the topside. The spider mites do their work on the underside. This spray is good for other pests also.

Good luck!
A.

Are you sure you've checked your house for all rotting fruit and veggies? Every time I've ever gotten fruit flies, I've found some offending fruit or vegetable somewhere in my house. Once it was some onions that got covered up on the counter with a baking pan I had set aside to be returned to the store. Once it was a small bag of potatoes that someone placed on the floor between the cabinet and the microwave cart and subsequently forgotten about. Another time it was a grocery bag with 3 oranges my mother brought over for the kids and they got mixed in with some other bags that were put aside with school supplies we bought well in advance of the first day. We have a banana "tree" and sometimes my kids take the 2nd to last banana and leave the other to "fall" behind the dish rack or water pitcher on the counter and it gets "forgotten". Of course, every time I've gotten rid of the rotting food, the flies disappear within a day.

I tell you, I was so perplexed with the bag of oranges incident. I had cleared off every counter, looked in every cupboard, my whole pantry and every shelf and couldn't find the culprit. Then, when I started getting out the school supplies for school and I found the horrendous bag of "no longer oranges", I just about fainted.

I guess it's possible to have fruit flies without over-ripened food on hand, but I've never had a fruit fly show up without a very unwelcome invitation lurking somewhere in my house.

Good luck!

Pour a little bit of bleach in a small, shallow bowl; leave it out on your countertop and the little critters will be gone after a couple of days.

I had fruit gnats this summer and was able to get rid of them by setting a shallow bowl of apple cider vinegar and adding sugar to it. It draws them in with the sweetness but they get stuck on top. I would change the bowl a couple of times a day to keep it fresh. The smell can be strong so the smaller/more shallow the bowl, the smaller amount you can use. GOOD LUCK!!