How to Get Rid of Fruit Flies in Your Home Naturally

Table of Content

• How do you get rid of flies inside the house?
• What Causes Fruit Flies and What Is the Fastest Way to Get Rid of Them?
• How To Get Rid Of Fruit Flies Without Vinegar
• Professional traps

If it’s clogged or in need of a good cleaning, now’s the time to take care of it. Fruit flies like to live and breed in warm, damp spaces. House flies feed on decaying organic material and waste, which includes kitchen garbage, pet waste and even animal food. For this reason, you will often see flies swarming around trash cans, outdoor restrooms and outdoor animal enclosures.

They flourish and breed on animal wastes, garbage, and decaying organic material. Rinse and wring out any mops or cloth rags you use for cleaning. You can wash rags in the washing machine in a hot water cycle to kill any eggs on the fabric. The flies are drawn to the smell, but the dishwashing detergent lowers the surface tension, causing them to sink and drown once they land. You can also use honey instead of dish soap - the result will be the same. Fruit flies are attracted to ripening and rotting fruit.

How do you get rid of flies inside the house?

Fruit flies have made themselves comfortable in your kitchen sink because there’s debris stuck inside the drain. These flies are attracted to the ripening and rotting organic matter caught inside the sink drain. Getting rid of the clog will help to eliminate the infestation. One of the best unclogging solutions involves the use of vinegar and baking soda.

Start by getting rid of all the fruits and veggies within proximity to the kitchen. Fruit flies are perennially attracted to the scent of decaying food and organic waste. Don’t make your kitchen any more of a hotspot by leaving fruits and vegetables accessible in unsealed containers. Though fruit fly populations can be managed with aerosol insecticide sprays, the most effective way to get rid of fruit flies is to make a fly trap.

What Causes Fruit Flies and What Is the Fastest Way to Get Rid of Them?

To prevent fruit flies in trash cans and food scrap containers, you should use tight-fitting lids and empty the containers every day. Rinse any food residue from the containers and let them dry before putting them back into use. Rinse any recyclable materials before putting them in the recycling bin. Clean the bin after your weekly recycling collection. To get rid of the fruit flies once they're in your house, you will need to do more than kill the adult flies you see.

Roll a piece of paper or strip of cardboard into a funnel shape and place it in a jar that holds two to three ounces of apple cider vinegar. Fruit flies will be attracted to the vinegar and unable to escape once they enter the trap. As their name suggests, fruit flies feed on overripe fruits, rotting vegetables, and other foods they find in the garbage or even in drains. And as their other common names imply, they also feed on wine, vinegar, and pomace . Fruit flies also like the yeast in foods, so they are often attracted to bread and other baked goods.

How To Get Rid Of Fruit Flies Without Vinegar

Although they look like gnats, fruit flies are a different species that are attracted to different things. Gnats are usually gray or black, while fruit flies are either tan, red, orange or brown, sometimes with red eyes. Combine equal parts of the two in a small bowl and add a pinch of sugar to the mix. There are biodegradable waste bags that you can use instead of ordinary plastic bags.

That's why covering them with a cake dome, cloth, or plastic wrap is a good plan. Fruit flies hate several rather nice smelling natural scents, including peppermint, lavender, eucalyptus, lemongrass, and clove. A fun added bonus is that your home will smell really pleasant after doing this. Make sure that you dispose of any trash or spills properly as well. Keep your home clean by wiping and cleaning up your kitchen counters in order to prevent further infestation. Since fruit flies are lured by sugar and other organic materials, they will usually be found near fruits.

Professional traps

It's more about managing and mitigating the problem and preventing worse. This can effectively help you prevent future fruit fly infestations. When purchasing fruits and veggies at the grocery store, be careful not to choose those that are too ripe, especially if you aren’t using them right away.

Note that the numbers in parentheses (1, 2, etc.) are clickable links to medically peer-reviewed studies. This Dr. Axe content is medically reviewed or fact checked to ensure factually accurate information. Learn how to spot different types of fly bites and how to treat them.

Home Remedies For Cracked Heels And Dry Feet

Flies come back into your kitchen and lay eggs in the dustbin, which then hatch, causing you to have even more flies in your home. This product is a little stronger than a DIY solution and claims to "naturally" kill pests with non-toxic ingredients. Keep sink drains free of food particles and residue as best you can. All right, we’ve had a crash course on fruit flies, and little ways you can tell them apart from gnats. Both fruit flies and gnats seem to invade suddenly, but through different channels. Place the trap in the area where you've seen the fruit flies, and wait for it to do its job.

Fruit flies will be drawn to the bowl and meet their demise. Wash all produce that you bring home from grocery stores since fruit flies can hitchhike on produce to get into your home. Keeping things clean and tidy and putting food away can keep fruit flies and their eggs from coming back. Fruit flies have a life cycle of a week or less, so once the breeding sites are removed, flies will disappear relatively quickly.