Fruit flies are a pesky little insect. The saying that if you've seen one, there are probably a hundred, is true for the fruit fly. Once you start to capture them you will be amazed at how many you see in the trap and how many were really in your house!
As its name implies, fruit flies like to feed on fruit. There can be many reasons fruit flies are in your house. They could be attracted to your fruit in the fruit bowl display, the row of freshly picked tomatoes waiting for processing, or even a dirty garbage disposal with its mixture of old foods. No matter the reason, fruit flies are an unwelcome guest but can be easily removed with the following homemade device.
- First, eliminate the source that is attracting the fruit flies. Throw out old fruit, process the tomatoes, place fruit in the refrigerator until the trap has cleared the fruit flies. If you have messes, you will need to clean them up and clean your garbage disposal too. Then continue to clean up after meals. A cup with milk residue will even attract fruit flies and keep them from going to the intended source: your trap.
- To make the trap, you need a bottle or other container with a narrower neck. Take a regular piece of paper and roll it into a funnel shape, leaving a pea-sized opening at the bottom of the funnel. Tape the paper to secure that the funnel does not come unrolled.
- Take a piece of banana peel, a slice of tomato, a squashed grape, a bit of red wine, or any other food (generally sweet or fruit-related) that you think will attract a fruit fly. Place this in the bottom of your container.
- Then shove the paper funnel into the neck of the bottle, making a seal. There should be no room for the fruit fly to get out between the sides of the container and the paper.
- Simply place your trap in the location where you are seeing fruit flies. Give it time to work. The fruit flies have to smell the fruit in the bottom and find their way in. They won't find their way out.
- You can leave your fruit fly container sitting out for days. If it gets a little unappealing looking at all those fruit flies crawling around the glass, take it outside and release them and then just bring it back in and put the funnel back in it.
- Move the trap around the house. It is likely that the fruit flies will spread out once the source of their food is diminished. Kitchens are generally where the infestation starts, but fruit flies will soon be attracted to the wet conditions in the bathroom and (gross) the sweet toothpaste scents on your toothbrush. When you have fruit flies in your house it is best to keep your toothbrushes in a plastic bag until they are gone.
- After three or four days (depending on the numbers of fruit flies in your home) you will begin to see fewer fruit flies in the trap. If you empty it once or twice a day it will be easier to notice how many you have.
Why does this work? You would think that if the fruit fly could find its way in, it could also find its way out. But the fruit fly hones in on the fruit to get in. When it's time to get out of an object with sides, its instinct is to travel straight up. So the fruit flies will be trying to escape by flying up to where the container meets the paper. This is why you have to make sure your seal between the container and paper is air tight. Because you have a funnel shape that goes below the walls, the opening is too hard to for the fruit flies to find.
Good luck, and good riddance!
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