Fruit Flies

There is hardly any way around it.  If you like to keep fruit around, you are going to get fruit flies.  They don’t bite, but they are always around and can be a little bit annoying.  It’s like, don’t you have anywhere else to hang out?  And there always seems to be more of them when the weather is warm.  Once your fruit has too many flies, you can replace it with new fruit, but it is only a matter of time before that fruit is now covered in flies.  You can use bait and set traps, but the bait only seems to bring more flies.  You could get rid of fruit for good, but you love your fruit and don’t see why you can’t have them all to yourself.  Maybe we just need to accept that if you like fruit, you’re going to have to deal with fruit flies.

Fruit flies get into your home via fruit that is already infested or through windows and doors.  Once inside, they are hard to control.  They lay hundreds of eggs and mature to adult in less than a week.  All they need to breed is fermented material which comes from over ripened fruit.  You can remove over ripened fruit from your kitchen, but that doesn’t mean you’re in the clear.  They can breed in fruit juice spilled under your fridge, in remnants of food in your garbage disposal, or in empty wine bottles that haven’t been washed out.  You would need to have obsessive compulsive disorder to keep your kitchen clean enough so fruit flies couldn’t find a place to breed.  This would require removing fruit from your kitchen as soon as it is ripe because the second it is over ripe, it’s already too late.  You would have to clean the inside of your garbage disposal after every use, clean under all major appliances daily, and wash out bottles before putting them in the trash.  You almost can’t even use an indoor trash can if you are trying to keep fruit flies out.  While trying to keep fruit flies from ever coming into your kitchen is probably unattainable, you can do something to significantly reduce a bad infestation.  

A popular fruit fly trap is made with bait in a container mixed with soap.  The bait could be apple cider vinegar, wine, or a piece of rotten fruit.  Any fermented material will do.  You can even mix yeast, sugar, and water which will mimic fermented fruit.  The soap is added because it makes it difficult for the fly to escape once it lands in the fermented liquid.  The container must have a small entry point which would be difficult for the flies to escape.  Small holes punched in a mason jar lid would work, or a funnel with a small opening used as a lid. 

In preparation for this article, I made three versions of this trap in my own kitchen and left them there for a week.  They all trapped plenty of flies, but there were still flies flying around.  I began to question whether I was reducing the fly population at all.  Even though I was trapping them, was the bait only bringing more and more flies into my kitchen?  Once I removed the traps, the population decreased but there were still flies around my fruit and wine bottles, the places they were before I added the traps. 

After a little research, I realized what I hadn’t done was remove any potential breeding grounds.  I started by moving ripe fruit to the fridge so it wouldn’t over ripen on the counter.  I then started putting opened wine bottles in the fridge.  I wasn’t crazy about having chilled dry red wine, but I figured I could use a small, unplugged fridge for opened wine bottles in the future if this made enough of a difference.  I also started washing out wine bottles before putting them in the trash.  I already put my fruit and vegetable scraps in the fridge for compost, but if you don’t do this, you may want to consider storing such scraps in the fridge until it is time to take the trash out.  I basically tried to keep any food out of the trash.  If I had to throw food scraps away after dinner, I immediately took the trash out.  I also cleaned my garbage disposal and under all appliances.  Once all breeding grounds were eliminated, it was time to pull the traps back out.  Now I could kill the existing adult flies and there wouldn’t be new flies to follow.  I’m not going to say my kitchen was 100% fruit fly free, but the population decreased to where I had to look for them. 

I have a very old house and the door in my kitchen that goes outside has gaps when closed.  We are constantly using this door as it goes to the car port.  Also, there is a dog door.  Plenty of ways for flies to get in.  It’s only a matter of time before I will have to do another purge of potential breeding grounds, but for now I have some relief.  Fruit flies just come with the territory if you like fruit (or wine).  Hopefully this advice will help you keep them at bay.