How to remove fruit flies from your kitchen — Madison’s student essay

How To Remove Fruit Flies From Your Kitchen?

Fruit Flies are pesky little bugs that easily sneak into peoples kitchens and drive them up a wall. Many people have tried multiple ways to get rid of them, but no matter what you do, they keep on coming back. There are some precautions that can be taken to prevent fruit flies from entering your home and there are also some unique remedies people have developed through the years. Some of the remedies use the flies’ sense of smell to draw them in and kill them.

Before fruit flies fly into your kitchen there are many precautions you can use to make sure they do not end up in your kitchen. One precaution you can take is to make sure your kitchen is dry and clean and fruits are covered. Keeping your kitchen clean and not leaving foods out prevents fruit flies from laying any eggs in.

 Another precaution you can take is to wash your fruit when you get home from the store from buying it. By washing the fruit, it will wash away any flies or larvae that was on there.

Fruit flies are mainly attracted to aging or rotting fruit since they can lay their eggs in there. Once the larvae hatch they will be able to feed on the soft, overripe contents of the fruit. Flies use their sense of smell to find that fruit and the scent they are attracted to is acetic acid which is the molecule that gives vinegar its odor.

Flies are eating rotten fruit on the ground.

One remedy that you can use to get rid of the flies is a mixture of dish soap and apple cider vinegar. Fill a bowl with some apple cider vinegar and a drop of dish soap and make sure to mix it well. The acetic acid of the apple cider vinegar will draw the flies to it and the dish soap decreases the surface tension of the mixture causing the flies to become immersed immediately.

Another method to get rid of fruit flies is with an old wine or beer bottle. Leave an open bottle of wine or beer on the counter and the flies will be tempted to fly into the container. Once they fly in however, the long narrow neck of the bottle acts as a barrier to get out of the container.

Another method to get rid of those pesky flies is to pour boiling water or vinegar down the drain of your sink. This method is effective since flies are attracted to warm damp places and the scent of the vinegar will draw them to the sink instead of your fruits or other objects in your kitchen.

If these DIY methods do not work then there are multiple fly traps and solutions in stores that you can set around your kitchen to ward away flies. There are also aerosols that can be used to get rid of flies, but there are pros and cons of using this method since it can harm the environment. I would use this method as a last resort to get rid of fruit flies.

Author: Madison Schroer

University of Georgia

Student Scholarships

Every year Thrive Pest Control hosts an essay contest and the reward is a 1-year scholarship at a 4-year university in the United States. This blog post is one of those scholarships.