There was a thread on this pretty recently…how do you get rid of fruit flys. And I got some good advice…clean out the drain in your sink. Helped alot. But the little buggers just seem to come back. No food out. Bleached out sink. Admittedly very hard to avoid all standing water in a kitchen.
They are driving me crazy. Any other ideas?
Thanks
Do you have a lot of houseplants? Sometimes little flies will hang out on houseplants, too. I don’t know what sort of product you’d want to use to rid the plants of bugs, but I’m sure a more horticulturally-inclined Doper might have a suggestion.
Bug-bomb. I had this problem, did everything you did, still had the little bastards. So, one day I cleaned like a mofo, took out all the trash, cleaned every surface, thne sealed off the kitchen and bombed the little winged devils back to the stone age.
And here I thought the thread would be about natural language parsing.
(Well, no. But I do have a couple of dogs who like to eat flies. Just snap them out of the air. Yum.)
Quick answer for immediate relief–vacuum them up. Long term answer–find their source, eliminate it.
There’s a fruit fly trap you can buy, basically a little triangular container with something, I know not what, inside and a tiny hole in the top. Put this on your counter and the fly problem is GONE. You need to keep it around as bringing fruit into your house always brings some flies; I read somewhere (sorry, no cite) that bananas are the worst offenders as the flies lay eggs on the peel. Anyhow, the place where I get my traps is the Gardener’s Supply Company, and they are on line. They also make a lovely pseudo-marble box you can put your trap in so it’s prettier on the counter. I used to see the ads and thought it was probably a scam but it has worked for me and for three of my friends. The company says the traps last a month but my experience is that they last more like six months. YMMV.
The little buggers are attracted to fermented fruit–>Vinegar. I’ve had good success with a pool of 1:1 vinegar:water mixture on a coffee cup plate. The flies come to eat, and drown. A jar with a hole in the lid, and vinegar inside would probably work even better.
Hmmm…I only have a floor vacuum and the hose doesn’t really work but that would be very satisfying. And all I’ve be able to figure out is they moved in with some dubious fruit and have been breeding in the drain, which I have been monitoring. Beyond that 
kayT, that sounds like an interesting possibility.
They are slow, and it is satisfying to suck all those little bastards up. If the hose is short, just bring the vac up to counter level. It’s the fastest way I know to get rid of the little swarms hovering over your bananas.
As an aside, you can store bananas in the fridge once they’re ripe. The peel turns black, but the banana is still good, gives you an extra couple of days to eat them, and removes a source for the fruit flies.
I have fruit flies all the time. I actually pay money for them! I have pet frogs and that’s what they eat. skuink mentioned vinegar, I’ve found they love wine as well.
Spiders will work well, too. This is assuming, of course, that you don’t mind having a bunch of spiders in your house.
Fruit flies like the banana you bring home from the store.
Fruit flies or eggs go with the territory.
The things is we don’t HAVE any bananas. I don’t even like bananas (we think they moved in on a batch of peaches). Do you think if I left directions out to the house of a banana loving neighbor they’d move out?
I think I’ll try the vinegar…sounds as good as drowning slugs in beer. And look for this thing kayT was talking about.
The things is we don’t HAVE any bananas. I don’t even like bananas (we think they moved in on a batch of peaches). Do you think if I left directions out to the house of a banana loving neighbor they’d move out?
I think I’ll try the vinegar…sounds as good as drowning slugs in beer. And look for this thing kayT was talking about.