How to get rid of fruit flies with white vinegar

Those pesky little buddies with monstrous red eyes are back again aren’t they? Now they’re parading everywhere from the fruit bowl at the kitchen countertop to the drink-spill-spot sitting proudly underneath the refrigerator.

And listen to the worst part, it’s only a matter of weeks before the entire household becomes overflown with three times the number of fruit flies you’re currently seeing — because they give birth in crazy numbers and at disturbingly high frequency.

Don’t worry though, because we’ve got you covered. With a white vinegar solution. It’s highly effective at capturing the last remains of culprit fruit flies, even more so than any store bought fruit fly solution you’ll ever lay your hands on. Plus it’s extremely affordable and the ingredients are probably sitting somewhere at the kitchen countertop.

So let’s get started with the white vinegar homemade trap for fruit flies.


How to get rid of fruit flies with white vinegar

To make the white vinegar fruit fly trap, follow the steps below.

  1. Get a clear bowl or glass jar and fill with two inch white vinegar.
  2. Cover the top with a clear plastic wrap and poke a few tiny holes around the surface.
  3. Secure the edges of the wrap to the brim with a plastic wrap. Or, make a paper funnel using a piece from a notebook and cap it on the glass jar.
  4. Place solution(s) in the fruit fly breeding grounds and let sit overnight.
  5. Watch how fruit flies fall into the trap and never figure out how to escape from it.
  6. You can use the same preparation for up to a week or remake a new trap after every few days.

It’s important to take note that the efforts to get rid of fruit flies using white vinegar trap must be supplemented with proper cleaning and cleansing routine, else you risk participating in a never ending endeavor.

You can capture the last remains of fruit flies within the house and drown them in a vinegar solution mixed with dish soap, but newer generations will definitely come back when the stinking kitchen drain and basement trash can keep issuing the invite.


Why the white vinegar trap works?

Fruit flies are keenly attracted to any stuff that is fermenting or has products of fermentation in it. The fact that they live and thrive in moist rotting plants and fruits is enough evidence for that.

Fruit drinks, beer, wine, ciders and vinegar are all substances with byproducts of fermentation in them, and fruit flies therefore are naturally attracted to the strong stench they emit. I know what you’re thinking now. Whether or not you can use any of these substances in place of white vinegar? Of course yes. You can employ any of these substances as substitutes for white vinegar and they’ll work pretty well, just not equally as well.

Some of these substances such as beer, fruit drinks and apple cider vinegar would surpass the results you’re getting with white vinegar by a decent margin. That’s because all of them have fruit essence in one way or the other which happens to work better at attracting fruit flies than anything else.

Fruit flies can detect the stench of rotting and fermenting food items from more than one kilometres away. You better keep the kitchen atmosphere as pristine as any one suffering from chronic OCD would like it.

As an additional twist to the fruit fly trap from above, you can ditch the clear plastic wrap and just place the vinegar bowl with the surface open like that. The primary reason for placing the wrap in the first place is so that fruit flies wouldn’t be able to escape after being lured into the bowl: i.e. by sensing the trap mid-way and deciding that the vinegar solution is not worth the sip.

But based on experience, it seems that fruit flies just can resist having a taste from the kryptonite bowl. And when they get closer for a drink, they somehow get stuck and pulling themselves out becomes even more stressful than giving up the ghosts. For some strange reasons also, fruit flies never really figure out the holes from which they seeped into through the bowl. Quite laughable.

One additional thing you can do to make the trap even more effective is to add one drop of any dish washing liquid into the vinegar solution to reduce the surface tension of the solution and make fruit flies slip through easily. This way, the possibility of an escape is greatly reduced, and by morning, you’ll have glass jar filled with a beautiful recipe of crisp Fruit fly steak in Slurry Vinegar Sauce. Yummy for the trash can!


Other methods you can use to get rid of fruit flies in the house

  1. Rotten fruit trick: If you’re dealing with a fruit fly infestation, chances are that the source material that brought in the fruit flies in the first place is a rotten fruit or vegetable. So instead of throwing the culprit out, you can re-purpose the rotten food as a trap to capture fruit flies. Instead of the vinegar, beer, wine or cider in the glass jar, place the rotten fruit or vegetable at the bottom the jar and seal with a plastic wrap. The seal is important this time around since the base ingredient isn’t a sticky or slurry mass that would easily drown any investigating fruit fly. Place the trap around the fruit fly infested area and you’re done. By morning, you should start collecting numerous brined bodies of fruit flies for the lizards outside.
  2. Yeast trap: In a glass jar or container, pour two inches of warm water and add a teaspoon of yeast. Add small quantity of sugar to activate the yeast and cover with a plastic wrap or a paper funnel; depending on the container and on your choice as well. Next, tighten the wrap around the rim with a rubber band and let the solution sit for one week. Pour out the contents and repeat technique for the coming week.
  3. Milk trap: Bring to a simmer a mixture of one glass of milk together with half cup of raw pepper and a cup of sugar on a stove top. Bring down and let cool. Pour mixture into a bowl and set on the fruit fly affected area. Watch how fruit flies are lured into the bowl by the fermenting smell of sugar in milk and suffocated with the clogging particles of pepper.
  4. Carnivorous plant trap: If you’re looking for an ongoing solution after the DIY traps from above, or you simply want an aggressive fruit fly elimination routine, the carnivorous plant fruit fly trap alongside the DIY traps mentioned above is a good bet. You can invest in carnivorous sundew plants which will help trap investigating fruit flies on their sticky leaves and thereafter consume them.

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