Monday, June 13, 2011

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!!


7 comments:

  1. Thanks for posting this, def. going to try this.

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  2. This is perfect! One of our fans posted this link on our Facebook wall after I whined about coming home from vacation to a plague of fruit flies.

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  3. Hope it works well for you and gets rid of the pesky fruit flies. :)

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  4. I had a "Fruit Fly" invasion at my job.
    Someone brought in some bad fruit for lunch, and they multiplied & multiplied.
    Couldn't afford to do multiples of the "storebought" traps.

    Both the 2-liter Trap & the "Slurpee" cup trap really work.
    Drowned about 5 dozen of the little buggers with the 2-liter, IN ONE DAY.
    "Slurpee" Cup, took down about a dozen (not as big, not as effective.
    Added Recomendation:
    If you are dealing with an "Invasion" like I am,
    once the trap becomes full with live ones.
    Quickly cover the trap with saran wrap.
    Freeze the trap for about an hour to stun the live ones.
    Quickly introduce the sleepy heads to the "Tidy Bowl Man" (Toilet).
    Rinse with water, refill trap with fresh bait.
    Repeat until "All Gone".....

    Thanks for your tip on this one.
    It Really Worked, and, saved me some cash.

    -TK

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  5. something so simple, why didn't i think of that years ago?

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  6. Something else that will draw them like a magnet, and I found this by accident, is to put a little old coffee in the vinegar mix. The little buggers would suicide in my coffee while I was trying to drink it. YUCK! I found that the combination of the cider vinegar and the aged coffee is like crack to them.

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    Replies
    1. I just made my first hope and am hoping it works. I didn't know what I would use for bait, but all I had in the house was wine. It's fitting since I also had a divebomber go right into my wine :-) Will try a wine/coffee combo. When I'm doing drinking that I'll try it for the bait too. ;)

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