Nay for fruit flies!

[tinyplasticdinos]

When we first moved into this loft my roommates and I scrubbed it thoroughly, top to bottom. The last tenants were not the cleanest and even though maintenance cleaned and replaced the carpet we felt we needed to do a second round of scrubbing to feel comfortable.

 

And now eight months later there are fruit flies coming out of nowhere. Not a huge swarm of them, just one or two at a time. But one or two at a time every few hours, and we don't even know which area of the loft they are originating from.

 

It's frustrating because we're clean people so there isn't a stray banana peel behind our couch or anything. These buggers should not be here and despite our best efforts they just won't go away.

[Duskitty]

Ugh, fruit flies. A house me and my mom lived in for a while had fruit flies, and they're horrible. :( My mom made a trap out of an empty juice bottle with holes poked in the lid just big enough for a fruit fly, and filled the bottle half-full with apple cider vinegar, juice and wine. It trapped most of them. Best of luck finding out where they're coming from, and hope you get them all out! :)

[tinyplasticdinos]

My mom made a trap out of an empty juice bottle with holes poked in the lid just big enough for a fruit fly, and filled the bottle half-full with apple cider vinegar, juice and wine.

 

 

That's such great advice we're one step ahead, haha! We have them set up all over the house and they've been catching some but not all of them. We'll keep cleaning and vacuuming and hopefully they'll go away rather than multiply. :/

[siniri]

They will breed on any bit of food anywhere in the house. They especially like trash cans (they'll lay their eggs right in the crevices of the lid, and then the young have a good supply of munchies) and sink drains. I've heard of them liking sponges and toothbrushes, even! Baking soda and vinegar volcanoes in the drains should help kill any eggs there. Try not to let food particles go down sinks; rinse the bathroom sink well after toothbrushing (and the toothbrushes -- keep them in the medicine cabinet, or if you want to be really safe, in some mouthwash), dry out the sinks after each use (rinse and thoroughly wring out any sponges), and volcano regularly. Take trash out immediately (or store food trash in closed containers or the fridge until it's time to go out), wipe down all trash cans with vinegar (make sure you get any weird-looking egg casings, which just look like grains of brown rice), and just keep cleaning as you are. Hopefully they'll die off soon, and you can relax a bit. But you should wait until at least 2-3 weeks until you've seen the last one to start relaxing. Otherwise they keep coming back.

 

The best "fly trap" we ever made was an old bottle of red wine we were going to dump (it was more than half full, but I don't think its fullness matters, as long as there's enough left). My roommate put it on the counter. She'd removed the cork, but there was still some of the foil left behind. I came home an hour later, and there were literally hundreds of fruit flies floating, dead (my roommates weren't cooperative with the daily cleaning I mentioned above until the infestation got really bad).

[tinyplasticdinos]

They will breed on any bit of food anywhere in the house. They especially like trash cans (they'll lay their eggs right in the crevices of the lid, and then the young have a good supply of munchies) and sink drains. I've heard of them liking sponges and toothbrushes, even! Baking soda and vinegar volcanoes in the drains should help kill any eggs there.

 

We've completely cleaned our garbage cans a couple of times and take the garbage out regularly (no food left in the trash overnight or recycling that isn't washed clean), but the sink volcano isn't something we have tried yet! I believe the pipes for a bathroom sink and kitchen sink are connected too, so that might explain having them up and down stairs. We will definitely try that! Thanks for the tips!

[LillytheGrundo]

The Apple Cider Vinegar trick works wonders. Just when you think they are gone for good, they show up again!

[siniri]

I forgot to add the obvious: no fruit or veggies out at room temperature until they're all gone. :( I'm not a huge fan of refrigerator bananas, but this was key.

[tinyplasticdinos]

I forgot to add the obvious: no fruit or veggies out at room temperature until they're all gone. :( I'm not a huge fan of refrigerator bananas, but this was key.

 

Oh yes! We have all the apples and bananas in a crisper drawer. That's the first thing my roommate said, "CHECK THE BANANAS" (it wasn't the bananas).

[gingerew]

Ack! I have recently been struggling with fruit flies myself. I tried a vinegar trap with plain white vinegar to no avail (apparently the fact that it's apple cider vinegar is key). Anyways, good luck with yours - all the tips the other members have been giving are exactly what I had read online - but just a word of warning against wasting your time with plain vinegar.

[tinyplasticdinos]

but just a word of warning against wasting your time with plain vinegar.

 

Oh yes! One of my roommates called his mom about the traps and she warned us of the same thing, so we've been using apple cider vinegar from the get go. We're really hoping we can get rid of them now while it's still chilly, but we're hoping to do so without using harsh chemicals. There's a very real possibility that if we don't and it warms up we're going to have a horrible mess on our hands all summer. So if it comes down to it we'll go out and get some nasty sprays. But we hope we won't have to.

[gingerew]

You'll have to keep us posted on whether or not you're able to get rid of the stupid pests with the apple cider vinegar trap!

[carlyle]

I had a problem with fruit flies, too. They appear very rarely here, but there are so many of those buggers. It turned out they were hatching from a bag of tangerines. We got rid of that and killed all the flies (they are relatively slow) and now there are no more. I don't want to experience that every again.

[tinyplasticdinos]

We finally got them to go away, but we never discovered a source! We are living in a very old building so we think they might have been coming in from the apartment next to us. The way things are laid out their kitchen lines up with the areas we had the most flies. We were very persistent and all of the advice in this thread was very helpful :)

[1_little_sweet_girl]

Gross

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