It is arguably true that much hasn’t been said about these wearisome insects. Their presence in any surroundings causes a substantial amount of worry and uneasiness to the inhabitants. Now imagine if relocating to another environment free from the bothersome flies is not an option, how else can you deal with their existence?
It is easier than you think! I have researched on fruit flies, and thus I have compiled the most effective approaches of removing them near your area.
What Are Fruit Flies and How Do They Look?
As the name suggests, fruit flies are a family of insects with a high attraction to organic material more so fruits lying in various areas ranging from kitchen bowls, store shelves to the ones ripening in gardens. They don’t need a particular condition to breed as they find drains, garbage, and trash, among others, as their conducive survival places that can support their existence.
The question, “where do fruit flies come from” is quite challenging since the insects appear suddenly more so in the presence of a cut-open fruit or vegetable. These are tiny mysterious insects that form in thin air and can be bothersome in your environment all summer long, especially when there’s a fruit season.
However, what you didn’t know is that fruit flies are a family of the ordinary housefly Drosophila melanogaster with precise aspects that distinguish it from the other species.
For instance, it has a black abdomen, red eyes, and tan thorax, which identifies the species as unique. Their name is attributed to their potent attraction to rotting fruits as their feeds and also a place of laying their eggs. They undergo a metamorphosis that sees the egg transform into larvae, pupa, and lastly, adult. That’s the process of how they come into existence.
Moreover, the adult fly has a life expectancy of 40-50 days and reaches a typical length of about 3 to 4 mm. While it is believed that they are more active during the fall harvest, they are probable to surviving indoors provided that the conditions available favor their survival. However, these insects can be a bothersome pest to the house owners or groceries that they invade for breeding habitat.
Do Fruit Flies Bite? Find Out Here
The fact that these insects breed on fermenting fruits, they do not feed on blood. What’s more, their mouth structure cannot aid biting. Hence, they don’t bite at all.
Where Do Fruit Flies Come From? Conditions That Promote Fruit Flies
Identifying the cause is a procedure of preventing and realizing the causal agent of these flies. It is going a long way toward curbing their future return. Here is a peek of prospective causes of fruit flies that you probably didn’t know:
The Smell of Trash
Are you aware that the trash you bank in your home despite its quantity is among the primary elements considered as what causes fruit flies? They have a great sense of smell. Hence, flies move straight towards the scent and, finally, land on the trash, which seemingly smells delicious to them. Therefore, whenever you make a salad, the unwanted pieces of leftovers from organic material lure these flies the most.
For instance, in your bin at home, these flies will be all over on the waste of avocados, tomatoes, onions, among others. So, these highly organic materials are the elements that make the process of getting rid of fruit flies complicated with such trash available.
Stains and Old Spills
Fruit flies use their incredible sense of smell to detect stains and pills around homes. Therefore, uncleaned messes in houses lure these flies, hence, form a conducive breeding habitat for these insects.
Open Doors and Windows
Have you experienced fruit fly infestation before? If you have, then you have an apparent reason not to leave your door or window open. Whenever you seal all the kinks that can let fruit flies in house you live in, you are preventing their existence. Ensure that there is no space left to give them way inside your place and cut them off completely.
Pursuing a Conducive Hatching Ground
The first reason why a fruit fly gains access into your kitchen is in search of a conducive hatching environment. Fruits and vegetables attract them since they provide the best breeding place that allows flies to lay eggs, feed, and also hatch their young ones. Therefore, hatching habitat is among the primary elements of what attracts fruit flies into homes.
Moreover, just as a hen needs a good supply of feeds to lay eggs, female fruit flies need a constant amount of food too to lay their eggs. Unfortunately, its food is in our supermarkets, grocery stores, kitchens, and even our gardens. They land on fruits for regular food supply to hatch and complete their metamorphosis.
Setting with Warmer Temperature
The metamorphosis and breeding of fruit fly depend on the warmer temperature. This is a reason they are hardly seen during cold temperatures. In fact, during the cold periods, it is believed that the adult fly dies, and the yet to be hatched eggs remain frozen, hence, preserved until the next spring.
Even though the assumption is not valid, it is close to the truth. During the cold period, these flies undergo a hibernation-like process known as diapause. At this time, these insect’s growth is arrested in every metamorphosis stage, froze until the period when the temperatures are warm enough to provide a conducive environment to feed and remain active.
Getting Rid of Fruit Flies from Your Environment – The Best Techniques
Bothered with fruit flies? Worry no more. Here you’ll learn the best way to eliminate fruit flies without a glitch. Several procedures work well in the quest for the solution of eradicating these bothersome flies from your surroundings.
We have main methods which include spraying among others and also natural procedures that include tidying your house. Therefore, learn how to get rid of fruit flies and do away with the flies completely to regain the comfort of your home.
Primary Methods of Eliminating Fruit Flies
Eliminating an already infested fruit fly pandemic in a house or surrounding can be bothersome. However, doing away with these irritating insects can be easy if some methods are highly considered. Get a sneak peek of what you require to eliminate these worrying flies.
- The use of traps
Bothered by fruit fly pandemic for quite a prolonged period? There’s no doubt you’ve tried some prospective ways on how to get rid of fruit flies in kitchen, living room, and other places in your surroundings. However, some tried methods haven’t proved effective. The use of traps will do you well and give you peace in your home. It is the best way to get rid of fruit flies.
Putting a vinegar trap on the affected area within your surroundings is an effective eradication procedure. For instance, like other insects, fruit flies are not smart. Any fermented fruit smell attracts them. Therefore, set a vinegar cider bait in the fruit fly affected area.
They will dive-in, in large numbers. This will help in eradicating the fully-grown fruit flies that steers the continuity of a life circle through reproduction.
Make sure to check out my review of the best fruit fly traps on the market. I’ve covered all the top-notch treatments for different needs.
- Use of appropriate fruit fly sprays
Since these insects have a short reproduction cycle, the possibility of multiplying rapidly is very high. However, you should come up with a solution as fast as possible before their infestation by getting to know what kills fruit flies effectively.
The best elimination method that curbs the pandemic instantly is using appropriate insecticides, for example, pyrethrin. Therefore, identify the infested place within your surroundings, put on protective gear to prevent the toxic chemical reaching your skin. Pyrethrin aerosol is among the most effective fruit fly killer.
Moreover, before buying a spray for your pests, consider some aspects such as odor, its indoor effects, and, most importantly, killing impact. CB80 Pyrethrum aerosol is one best thing to kill fruit flies with, and it is shelved in many stores and agro vets. It kills within three seconds. Therefore, it is among the most important ways of how to kill fruit flies fast in an infested area within your vicinity.
- The use of zapper with ultraviolet light
A bug zapper used indoors when in good condition is a reliable method of controlling these annoying flies. It uses the ultraviolet light to lure these insects into the charged electric grid that kills these flies through electrocution, hence zapping them. The dead flies drop on a removable tray soon-cleaned with the bugs dumped.
Natural Methods of Eliminating Fruit Flies
Even though no one wishes to have these annoying flies at the comfort of their houses, once you bring in organic material such as fruits, you are sending the flies an open invitation. Eliminating bothersome flies does not only require artificial methods. Here are natural procedures that may be effective even though not as potent as the professional methods.
- Using carnivorous plants
Since fruit flies have a strong sense of smell, they quickly fly towards fermented fruits and wines. Therefore, use fermented wine. Pour it over a carnivorous plant, for example, the carnivorous sundew plant. The fermented grape juice odor in fermented wine attracts the flies to the plant, and then they are stuck in the plant’s sticky leaves.
The flies are caught when they get in contact with the plant’s leaves. If you are puzzled with how to catch fruit flies fast, be sure that the use of carnivorous sundew will be more effective.
- Drown the fruit flies with candle trap
This type of bait requires darkness and a source of light. Therefore, wait until darkness prevails, and then put a lighting candle on a jar full of water. Put the candle bait near the target area. The availability of light lures these flies. The candlelight will burn their wings.
Hence, flies fall in the trapped water and sink to their death. Also, the candlelight will reflect in the liquid, therefore, showing the flies the direction into the water, thus drowning them. Wondering how to get rid of fruit flies in the house that is heavily infested? Drowning the insects is a reliable yet costless measure you can use.
- Using sticky traps
Controlling a real fruit fly pandemic requires a yellow flytrap to deal with the infestation. However, for the procedure to be effective, you should entice these flies using either a fermented vinegar or rotten fruits. Once these insects land on the sticky bait, they get stuck. It is a reliable way to catch infested fruit flies in the bathroom.
- Water-filled container with a plastic wrap
Fruit flies are highly sensitive, hence, easily enticed by fermented fruits. Therefore, to lure them into your trap, use highly scented grape wine or rotten fruit as bait placed in a bowl full of water. The container should be wrapped with a plastic bag on the top.
Poke some holes in the plastic wrap placed on top of the water-filled jar. The flies will be attracted to the bowl, but since the holes are small, they will remain trapped inside the bowl, and later sink in the water and die. Therefore, catching fruit flies needs no sophisticated equipment. The natural method works best.
- Plant basil around your home
Basil plant is herb with an intense scent that irritates fruit fly. Upon sniffing the smell of basil plant leaves, the flies with no haste scram away. Therefore, anytime you go to the grocery and grab some fruits and vegetables, you can pluck basil plant leaves to cover them, hence, keeping fruit flies away.
Moreover, you can put the basil plant leaves in an open bowl together with your fruits. It can be more advantageous to have a live basil plant in your home at the place affected the most with the flies. The strong aroma of the herb leaves will make the flies scram and never come back so long as the plant is still be around.
- Tidy your surrounding after a meal
Do you know how to get rid of fruit flies in drain, for example, in your bathroom or kitchen? Organic wastes that can be collected on the kitchen and bathroom sink drain provide a conducive breeding environment of these flies. How about tidying up the sink? A clean sink drain will provide no smell that may attract the flies to your habitat.
You should clean dishes immediately after a meal to prevent the flies from being attracted to your drain. After eating fruit salad or vegetables, take the waste directly to the trash bin. What’s more, keep your highly organic foods such as fruits in the refrigerator.
The environment inside a fridge is freezing, therefore does not give the pests a conducive habitat to breed. As soon as they find their way in the freezer, the harsh temperatures give them a hard time to survive.
Control Methods That Keep Fruit Flies Away from Your Home
Even though sometimes killing these flies can be a challenge, there are some home-based remedies to keep them away. Get a glimpse of some of the procedures to ensure to prevent them from coming your way.
- Cover trash bins, cans, and bags
Since fruit flies are highly sensitive to smell, an aroma of rotting organic substance attracts them the most. Therefore, whenever you cover your trash can, the smell won’t get its way outside, hence, it helps in keeping the flies away.
- Keep your environment (kitchen & bathroom) dry
Fruit flies mostly thrive in damp and moist environments. Therefore, if you keep the area near you dump and wet, you are simply inviting these bothersome flies. Therefore, ensure that your kitchen and bathroom are dry by identifying any prospective leakage to be mended on time. If possible, after taking a shower, you can use a dehumidifier to keep the bathroom drain dry.
- Clean up dirty utensils
After a meal, ensure that the dishes used are cleaned early enough before the fruit flies are lured and form a feeding habitat. Clean utensils leave no smell that can attract the flies into your home.
The Final Thoughts
Even though less harmful, it is not fun having a swarm of bothersome fruit flies create a breeding ground at your home. However, you have the authority to take charge, drive them away, and free your home from infestation. Use the highlighted methods to either kill or control their existence and have a peaceful environment free from their bothersome effect.
As you can see, I named the solutions that are available and affordable for everyone. So, do not hesitate and try them. Have you ever been bothered by fruit flies? Which cost-effective methods did you use to get rid of them? Share your experiences by commenting below.
References:
- Fruit Flies (College of Agriculture, Food and Environment):
https://entomology.ca.uky.edu/ef621 - Controlling Queensland fruit fly in home gardens(Agricukture Victoria):
https://agriculture.vic.gov.au/biosecurity/pest-insects-and-mites/priority-pest-insects-and-mites/queensland-fruit-fly/controlling-queensland-fruit-fly-in-home-gardens - 13 Ways to Get Rid of Fruit Flies Naturally(Treehugger):
https://www.treehugger.com/ways-to-make-war-on-fruit-flies-4864327 - Fruit fly (Department of Primary Industries and Regianal Development):
https://www.agric.wa.gov.au/fruit/mediterranean-fruit-fly?nopaging=1
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Hello, Nicholas! Always read your articles, and you’ve helped me so much! Thank you for this article! I had a fruit fly problem every spring and summer for 3 years. Recently I’ve bought a zapper with ultraviolet light and the result is great! This device doesn’t require chemicals, consumes little energy. It also works as a night lamp and doesn’t look or smell like something meant for insect extermination. It’s really convenient and even stylish!