DIY fruit fly trap

It's summer, or suppose to be summer let's not talk about that, either way fruit flies have arrived. I always have problems with fruit flies. The easiest way to get rid of fruit flies is to not attract them in the first place. Keeping your kitchen clean, washing dishes right away, eating fruits and veggies quickly or storing them in the fridge, but really who does that. Things get left out, things get forgotten, fruit flies find their way into your home, it happens. It happens to me a lot because I have a compost pail that apparently lets flies in to it. I may also let dishes pile up and lose a apple, lemon, or lime on the back of my counter on occasion. Basically I don't have a spotless kitchen.

I do however have a really simple and basically free way of dealing with the fruit flies. I make fruit fly traps from things I already have lying around my kitchen. I have 3 traps in my home, 2 in the kitchen and one in my animal room, because animals attract flies too. I have 2 made out of 2-liter soda bottles. It's quite simple to make, take your bottle, you can even use a smaller 12-ounce size, or whatever plastic bottle you have on hand. Cut the bottle top off somewhere between a quarter and a third of the way down. It depends on the shape of your bottle, you will cut the top part off and invert it into the base you have left. You want it to not fall all the way in but you want it to be short enough to put liquid in the bottom of it to attract and then drown the flies.

Here are my traps made from 2-liter bottles. One I've had for a few years and one I made more recently.

The flies will fly into the bottle but not be able to find their way back out. As a lure for the flies put a some apple cider vinegar in the bottom, enough for them to drown in once then get in there. At first I put in a squirt of liquid soap as well to make it easier for them to drown but I've found that not necessary. The traps are easily refreshed by dumping out the dead fly vinegar and adding more. I've also found wine and soy sauce work as attractants as well but those need to be changed more often because they seem to grow mold more readily than the apple cider vinegar.

If you like Starbucks frappacinos you can make a no cut fly trap EXTREMELY easily, or any other sort of drink cup with a dome lid. Just clean the cup after you've enjoyed your drink invert the lid in the cup and a fly trap has been made.

The hole for the flies to get in is a bit bigger than a 2-liter but I this did not seem to be an issue with them finding their way out. There was a good amount of drowned flies in the apple cider vinegar. Can you see them all in there? Trust me they are in there.

Simple, cost effective, reuse, and effective at their job. Does it get better than that, oh yeah no more fruit flies everywhere!!