Recently we had our kitchen counters and sinks replaced, and then not long after that, we noticed that we had little bugs flying around our kitchen. At first, I thought they were sewer flies, since there had been a length of time when the pipes were unattached, and the bugs seemed to be congregating on the faucet and around the sink, but it turned out that they were actually coming from the trashcans in our garage, and they were fruit flies. This was verified by our experts at Western Pest Services.
Photo courtesy of terro.com
Our technician was able to spray the trashcans and garage to eliminate the pests, but inside, where food could become contaminated, was a bit trickier. He suggested I look online for a DIY trap, so I went to the boards at Pinterest, where there are many many remedies to be found. The one I chose was pretty simple.
All I needed was a Mason jar, apple cider vinegar, a little bit of plastic wrap and a rubber band. Then, just to make my trap irresistible to the fruit flies, I added a few pieces of melon to the mix.
It’s perhaps half a cup of apple cider vinegar. Then I covered the jar with plastic wrap, secured it with a rubber band and poked a few small holes in the plastic with a pencil point. I even set it up with some fly traps around it to see which method worked best.
The fruit flies loved my trap. Within about an hour, they began to congregate on the plastic.
And overnight, I went from having a swarm of flies around that sink, to maybe one or two random strays in the kitchen overall.
The commercial fly traps worked okay, but they didn’t really contain any bait to attract the fruit flies.
The homemade trap was much more effective. I have no doubt that if I had just used the paper traps, I would still have a problem today.
So, it turns out you can catch a lot of flies with vinegar, despite what my grandma used to say.
