Homemade Fruit Fly Trap

When you eat a lot of fresh fruit and produce you tend to see lots of fruit flies hanging around your house. My husband insists that there have to be eggs on the fruit and that is how they get into the house. I prefer to believe that the little guys can smell the ripe fruit from miles away and sneak inside the house to feast. Who wants to imagine they are buying fruit with egg sacs all over it??? Yuck! Either way it is gross to walk by your bowl of apples or bananas (or whatever fruit you like to eat), grab one, and then see dozens of little flies take flight.

Families with small children especially battle them because little slices of orange, apple cores, and banana peels don’t always make it to the compost or garbage bin right away. Sometimes in the warmer months we have to set up several homemade fruit fly traps in different rooms but MOSTLY we have to deal with them in the kitchen, where the fruit lives.

It has begun. This morning, after spending most of the weekend out of town, I discovered a melon that had gone bad. As in ooze dripping onto the floor bad. Fruit flies were having a wild party. Within 10-15 minutes I was able to wrangle those rascals into a jar and with just a few items around the house.

Homemade Fruit Fly Trap

You need:

Mason jar
Vinegar (I use ACV or rice vinegar)
Paper – A single piece folded/wrapped into a cone
Fruit – a single piece of really ripe fruit (I used a chunk of apple)

First you need to get rid of any over ripe fruit and thoroughly clean up any resulting mess. You have to take away their food so they will want to go into the jar. After that is done add the vinegar and fruit to the jar and then insert the cone, narrow part down. The fruit flies will be attracted to the vinegar/fruit and will make their way down into the jar but will not be able to get out. They will either drown or you can walk the jar outside and release them. Hope this helps!