Fruit flies DRIVING ME MAD!!!!!!!

[hippie]

Someone please tell me how to keep all these fruits and veggies without all the #%&*%$$#%%$%^%$ fruit flies!!!!!!!



....thanks... :thud:

[MysticTree]

cover the fruit and veg with those netted food covers or make a screened larder. Use jars with a very sweet liquid such as jam and water and a hole punched in the lid to trap them. They breed so quickly that it's hard to deal with if you get a problem.

[Jewels]

If you have a tank vacuum or vacuum cleaner with a hose, suck up as many as you can. For the rest, set out bottles, jars, glasses, or bowls containing a couple inches or so of apple cider vinegar (the cheap stuff is fine) and a couple drops of dish soap. This attracts them and they drown. These are two of the best ways I have found.

[hippie]

If you have a tank vacuum or vacuum cleaner with a hose, suck up as many as you can. For the rest, set out bottles, jars, glasses, or bowls containing a couple inches or so of apple cider vinegar (the cheap stuff is fine) and a couple drops of dish soap. This attracts them and they drown. These are two of the best ways I have found.

I have tried apple cider vinegar, but not with dish soap (hand't heard to add that) those little jerk offs got all around the lid and the sides of the glass w/o going in!!!!!!!! I will try it with the soap though

[hippie]

cover the fruit and veg with those netted food covers or make a screened larder. Use jars with a very sweet liquid such as jam and water and a hole punched in the lid to trap them. They breed so quickly that it's hard to deal with if you get a problem.

I will try the poking a hole in the lid, lol I have to admit it sounds like something I am going to be very unsuccessful at though!

[Cruditas]

The Apple Cider Vinegar with a drop or two of dishwashing liquid really works. They go after the vinegar and can't get out because the soap hiders their ability to fly.

[LexieW]

Thoroughly rinse your produce as soon as you bring it home. The fruit fly eggs are miniscule and on your produce when you buy it.

I used to have a fruit fly problem until I started doing this. It took care of my problem.

[streetsurfer]

A bit of soap serves to break surface tension allowing the water to more quickly envelope them, weighting them down and prohibiting theri flying as previously stated. They will fall in rather than land on top of water and be able to fly off.

[hippie]

Ok, i just put out a container with ACV and dish soap. PRAY FOR ME!!

[Jewels]

I think you will be surprised how many you catch by tomorrow morning.

To prevent fruit flies, I don't throw produce scraps in the kitchen waste basket where they could be attracted. I keep the scraps in the fridge in a container with a lid or a plastic bag before I'm ready to take them out to the dumpster.

[TangentLine]

Quick question:

You're really supposed to thoroughly rinse all produce as soon as you bring it home? I only have the type of sink faucet with a solid stream, not the shower-kind good for rinsing. So what should I do?

I used the vinegar trap somewhat successfully, collecting 7-8 fruit flies in a jar today, but I still saw 2 of them flying around in my kitchen and hope they don't multiply tomorrow morning.

[hippie]

I've got to say none of the tips worked out for me. The only thing that slowly kills these little evils off is making sure there isn't an ounce of food out (except a few oranges). Wiping down/sweeping/moping the kitchen nightly, and taking the trash out b4 bed every single night.

[fastfreedom]

Are you throwing all your scraps into your garbage? I'm gonna guess you are, just cus it kinda sounds that way. Maybe that's the source of the issue.?.? I have loads of fruit around and haven't had an issue with fruit flies. I take ALL my scraps and put em into a 5 gallon bucket outside and every couple of days I haul the scraps to my compost pile. If my garden were closer to my house though I would probably just take the scraps right to the compost pile and avoid the bucket. I do notice lots of fruit flies in the bucket outside with the scraps, but I've never had an issue with fruit flies inside.

[green goddess]

Two years ago I had a huge infestation of fruit flies. I remember looking up at the kitchen ceiling at one point and there were so many scattered on the ceiling, it was awful! Last year I vowed to not repeat this scenario again. Here's what I did:

-made sure there were no remnants of food left out: no produce peels, no counters unwiped, no over-ripe produce to attract them. All fruit / veg scraps went into the compost bucket which was emptied and throroughly wiped down regularly. (I even had to get on my boyfriend's case as he had a habit of leaving out loaves of bread without securely wrapping it up, and I know the little suckers are attracted to that, too! Boy, did he get a surprise one day the year before! ;) )

-all dishes were washed right away, so there were no miniscule food traces to attract any teeny critters.

Now, everything was working really well, until late summer when I discovered that, despite my successful war on fruit flies, there was a small army of them developing. Turns out a small watermelon that my boyfriend had bought, planning to juice it, had been forgotten about in the recesses of the pantry, with our stock of grocery bags hiding it. It had started breaking down (curses that I hadn't even smelled it! All the fresh fruit aromas from the pantry must have overwhelmed it!) and leaking juice on the floor, and the resulting fruit-fly ridden scene was not pretty. When I inadvertantly disturbed them, a huge cloud of them took flight and scattered around the kitchen. So I had to take evasive action (not pleasant unsuccessfully dodging dozens of fruit flies flying near one's face!) and come up with a battle plan. Here's what I did:

-took a standard goblet-style wine glass; filled 1/3 full with red wine purchased for this very purpose
-covered tightly with plastic saran wrap (so tight, there were no wrinkles or creases)
-poked a dozen holes in the wrap using a toothpick, so each hole was roughly the size (or slightly smaller) of a fruit fly body (holes can't be too big, or the odd one might be able to get back out; also, the action of poking each hole causes the plastic wrap to tear inward, which allows easy entry into the glass, but difficulty getting back out)
-set the wine glass in the pantry and kept an eye on it for a few days.

As I understand it, the wine causes the flies to 'get drunk', so they become impaired and end up drowning (happily intoxicated) in the wine. Over several days, my wine glass trap dispatched dozens of them, and by being careful to not let anything else slip up, life became happily fruit fly-free over a course of a couple of weeks.

One thing I'd caution, though: if you forget about the wine glass trap and it sits around for too long (say, a month), the flies that become trapped but don't die will breed. It's a little unpleasant having to deal with a forgotten-about trap and witnessing little maggots crawling around the glass interior. Just sayin'.

Hope this helps anyone! And I'm happy to report that so far this year, I've seen only two fruit flies, and that was a couple of weeks ago. Hooray to not being constantly on the alert, swatting them away from my face!

[MysticTree]

Another thing you can do is to get a piece of card and smear Vaseline all over one side. Hold the card over the area where you suspect the flies to be hiding then tap the counter or near where the flies are settled. When they fly up they stick to the Vaseline.

[PansyLo]

Ohhhh god, we had fruit flies at my old work and could just not get rid of the damned things!!

They breed so quickly that more just appear and even when you think you've got them all, a few survive and multiply! I sympathise. They drove me insane.

Good luck!