When you start working on self-sufficiency, you end up doing a lot of things in your kitchen. If you are at all like me, you have started composting, you have lots of fruits and veggies that are not kept in your refrigerator, you may have decided to grow celery indoors on your window sill, and you may have had your garbage disposal die on you, leaving decaying non-produce types of foods.
All of these contribute to a growing fruit fly population. So in my situation, I need to get rid of fruit flies and gnats in my kitchen. The methods that I am choosing are designed to be fast, easy, and natural (or at least non-toxic). I know that there are good non-natural, but non-toxic and minimal impact, ways to get rid of flies, and I may decide to use them as a part of my arsenal.
What am I considering as my main methods? Well, interestingly enough, I am compiling a list for you!
- If you need to find the drain that they could be coming from… suspecting that they may also be moth flies. You can coat a cup with vegetable oil above the suspected drains and check daily. they get stuck to the oil, and you found your area of attack.
- First step is that we are cutting up all fruit and vegetables, and placing them in the freezer and refrigerator. We are cleaning out our potato, onion, and bread boxes. This is just until we can get the fruit flies under control. We are also moving our window sill celery outside on our porch to get more sun and get them out of the infestation. We will also be washing out our trash cans.
- We are going to make apple cider traps, and a lot of them. Basically using jars, we get the flies to fly into a cone that we make out of notebook paper, and they get trapped behind it in the jar. We are adding tape around the rim of the jar to attach it to the cone, so they can’t escape.
- A cone may also be made by using sandwich bags and a rubber band. Cut a hole in the corner of the bag and make a cone shape inside the jar. Use the rubber band to attach it to the jar.One apple cider death trap has an attractant made from apple cider vinegar.
- Dish Soap is added to it, because it breaks the surface tension of the vinegar. When the fruit flies try to land on the ACV, they sink and drown. Some people have added water, but I will try the full strength version.
- The next bait for these traps is slices of ripe banana. With this method, we are just attracting them and trapping them. It doesn’t do much in the way of killing them.
- Another trap is to place old skinless fruit in a bowl with some wine, beer, or basalmic vinegarette and cover with plastic wrap. Poke a few holes in the plastic wrap carefully. Once again, they go in but not out.
- Place a fan pointing at the trouble spot. Flies cannot land in a cross-wind, so they cannot lay eggs on the items.
- Use Windex. Windex will kill most small bugs instantly. I would say that you can use Clorox sprays, but that is much more toxic, so that isn’t really the option.
- Another option for a spray is an organic spray. Get some lemon grass oil 2 drops per 10 ounces of hot water, then spray round infected areas and all round your house if you wish.
- There is also the option of placing rotting fruit on a disposable bottle and catch them, but this is an active method, so I won’t be using it. I am more interested in the passive traps.
- Another active method is to simply vacuum them up and release them outside.
- Another idea is petroleum jelly on yellow note cards. The flies are attracted to yellow and stick to the jelly. From what I have found, this doesn’t work well.
- You can pour boiling water down any suspect drains, and do so at regular intervals. A more toxic version is to use bleach.
- On the cider kick, another method we will try is a kill two birds (or bugs) with one stone. Apple cider vinegar is used to clean your dishwashers, so I will load the washer, add soap, then add 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar to the bottom of the dishwasher. I will wait for an hour or 2 and will then quietly shut the door and run the machine. Bugs killed instantly and are purged during the very first dishwater runoff.
I hope that you learn from my problems! Keep me posted if you know of other ways of getting rid of fruit flies!