DIY Fruit Fly Traps: What Works Best?

Fruit flies make our ripened fruity delights less than appealing. If you’ve spilled a fruit-flavored drink and forgot to clean it up—or left some overly ripe fruit out too long—you’ve probably come across these fluttering annoyances. The good news? There are some quick and easy DIY fruit fly traps you can deploy around your home to catch and kill these buggers. Here are some that work wonders using only simple household ingredients and concoctions. 

Fruit Fly Traps to Try

The Fruit Trap

This trap takes little more than minutes to make. Place overly ripe or rotting fruit in a bowl or jar and cover it with a poked-through clear wrap lid. Keep secure with a rubber band just below the rim. 

Sweet & Sour

This trap is also pleasantly simple. Pour apple cider vinegar into a glass, and drop in a few squeezes of dish soap. 

The Wine Trap

Cover a glass or jar of leftover wine with poked-through clear wrap and tie a rubber band on the bottleneck to keep the wrap in place. 

Mix It Up

This trap takes the previous two and combines them into one. Mix together ripe or rotting fruit, apple cider vinegar, and a couple droplets of dish soap together into a jar. Put a poked-through clear wrap on top of the jar, and strap a snug rubber band to its neck. 

The Super Sweet Mix

This next mix is sure to sweeten the spoils. Heat up a mixture of sugar and honey. Add another dose of sugar and honey, then combine it with ripe or rotting fruit and apple cider vinegar. Similar to the other traps, cover the concoction with a clear wrap with plenty of poked-through holes. 

The Triple Threat

The triple threat fruit fly trap makes for a sticky situation. Start with a bowl of milk, mix in sugar and ground pepper and bring it to a simmer or heat it in the microwave for one minute. The end result is a mixture fruit flies cannot resist that also leads to their quick demise. 

The Winner?

All of these DIY fruit fly traps work to an extent. The most effective seems to be the triple threat with its high access level and casualty rate. However, fruit flies still tend to gravitate to an open-source of ripe or rotting fruit more. But that’s pretty intuitive as to the reason why. 

So, besides these DIY tricks, what are the ways to keep fruit flies away? Removing the source of their obsession as much as possible. This means you should store fruit in the fridge when it’s overripe, wash your fruits and veggies when you bring them home, seal any strong-smelling foods, clean and empty recycling and trash bins routinely, and wash dirty dishes immediately and not let them sit. 

If your struggles with household pests seem overwhelming, then call in the experts at Vulcan Termite & Pest Control. We can get to the root of the issue and help solve it at the source. Contact us to set up an appointment to come help keep your home and yard pest-free. Plus, see other DIY tricks, trends, and to-dos on our blog!