Steps to Follow For Severe Fruit Fly Infestation:

I would first like to say that we have not tried all of these methods yet but the ones we tried worked pretty well at controlling the infestation. If you try them and have good or bad results please email and let us know so we can let others know if it worked well for you or not.

When you keep worms in bins, fruit and vegetables are a primary source of food for them. Since fruit fly larvae are on almost all of the fruit & veggies that you buy in the stores, you should watch for signs of fruit flies and make sure you use at least 3” of dry shredded paper on top of the worm bed. As long as it is dry it will be easily moved aside to feed them and then replaced.  This will greatly help reduce the fruit flies from hatching.  Be sure to bury the food in different spots in the bin and cover it with the coir and shredded papers as much as possible, so it is not exposed and the fruit flies cannot hatch out.  If you want to make sure that they are not coming from the food, it can be microwaved for a few seconds this will help kill any larvae and prevent it from adding to the pesky fruit fly population, be sure to cool the food down before it is added to the bins to feed the worms.  All that the fruit flies need to hatch is a damp moist area that they can hatch in and in days you have a very large population of pests to deal with.

Here are some helpful suggestions to follow:

First you must remove the food source and the moisture from the breeding areas. Fruit flies have a life-cycle of 10 days, giving them plenty of time to punish you for leaving moist, fermenting, organic material in which they love to lay eggs.  If you have thought about fly traps, my experience has been that most fly trap ideas only serve to illustrate the flies' progress in taking over your home, and some will themselves provide a breeding ground.  Sanitation is the best, most effective resolution.  

Address these frequent problem spots:

If indoor bins are kept in or near the kitchen area, be sure to wash all dishes. Clear and clean the drains. Launder the dishrags, or at least wash them thoroughly with soap, rinse them well and wring them dry before hanging them up (don't leave them in the sink). Store all trash in a covered bin. Do not toss food garbage into waste-paper baskets. Cover your fruit bowl or store fruit you wish to keep in the refrigerator. Also, raisins, dates and prunes are favorite attractants, so store them in a sealed container or in the refrigerator. Discard all overripe fruit or if you intend to feed it to the worms, place it in the microwave for a few seconds before you add it to the bin so it kills any fruit fly larvae that may have been laid on it. Rinse all empty open containers before disposing of them and clean all sides and edges of open containers of fruit juice, fermented or vinegar products, even for example things like ketchup, siracha or cooking wine. Seal them well. Keep these in the refrigerator if possible. Wipe up crumbs and spills from your cabinets, counter and floor. Take out all trash--do not re-use the plastic liner garbage bags.  Clean the seals of your refrigerator door, the top and under the fridge especially clean the evaporation pan if it has one. Clean under and around your dishwasher and stove. Damp mop with soap & water, clean the pail, and launder the mop head/rag directly after each use. Remove damp lint from the laundry room.  Take out your compost and keep your collection canister covered and food additions to your pile well buried beneath the surface. (Don’t forget a few seconds in the microwave will help kill the larvae) Do not use manure, beer or rank water for fertilizer near the house. Use screens for your doors and windows.

Simplest trap first method:

After cleaning and removing ALL other attractants that we listed above. Place about 1" of apple cider or balsamic vinegar in the bottom of a glass jar. (Note: plain white vinegar will not work and the mixture of apple cider and vinegar will have a strong odor.) Add a couple of drops of liquid dish detergent or automatic DW rinse agent and swish it around to break to surface tension. Place trap in infested area overnight. You will find many dead fruit flies in the morning. They will land during the day but for some reason the darkness or cool temperatures at night seem to attract many that won't land during the day. The flies are attracted by the vinegar as it smells like rotting fruit to them. They try to land to feed from the surface. Surface tension normally allows them to feed from the surface of a liquid. However, the detergent/rinse agent breaks the surface tension so the flies drown.

Bowl trap method:

Put a piece of old skinless fruit and some wine, or some balsamic vinegar in a bowl (think like the flies: what do you want for dinner?).  Cover the bowl tightly (no wrinkles) with plastic wrap. Poke many small holes in the plastic with a fork. The fruit flies go in and can't get out (if the holes are too big they will fly back out).

Plastic Ziploc bag trap method:

Place a few slices of an apple inside a zip lock bag, leave an inch open to allow pests to enter. The little pests will soon be on and surrounding the apple. Zip the bag closed and crush each one with your fingertips.(this sounds a little brutal to me).

Funnel trap method:

Make a cone out of a sheet of paper (like a funnel). Tape the outside of the cone so that it stays in place. Check that the cone fits snugly into a glass or cup. Cut off the tip of the cone so that you now have a funnel. Pour a small amount of cider vinegar into the glass or cup. (Rum mixed with orange juice also works very well - additionally, a half teaspoon of baker's yeast in water can also suffice) Insert the funnel into the glass or cup, but don't let the bottom of the funnel touch the liquid. Tape the funnel in two or three places from the outside so that there is no gap between the glass and the cone. Place your newly created trap on a flat surface. The flies will be attracted by the smell of the fruity vinegar and fly into the cone. The flies will slip down the cone and will either land in the vinegar and drown or will be trapped and not able to get back out. If you leave the trap overnight, the trapped fruit flies will eventually fall into the vinegar and drown.

Soda bottle trap method:

This is my favorite one and I make 5 or 6 of them they work very well and fast too. You can reuse them, just dump them, rinse them and add more of the solution to attract them). First remove the lid and label from a clean, empty plastic one or two-liter soda bottle. Carefully remove the upper third of the bottle by cutting along its circumference at approximately where the top of the label used to be. Put an attractive liquid such as orange juice or cider vinegar in the cup-shaped part of the now-severed bottle. Turn the cone upside-down and insert it into the cup-shaped bottom part of the bottle. Seal the seam at the top of the bottle with duct tape. Fruit flies find their way into the bottle, but they can't get back out. After most flies are trapped inside, simply seal the bottle in a plastic shopping bag and throw out or rinse them out and replace the liquid with fresh.

Oven trap or Dishwasher trap method:

Remove all available food from kitchen. Clean the dishes, place open items in ziplock bags or the fridge. Open the door of your oven and place a piece of fruit (banana or kiwi peels) in there overnight. (DO NOT DO THIS METHOD WITH A GAS OVEN. Electric ovens only) Wake up early the next morning and quietly close the oven door. Turn on the oven to 400ºF/200ºC for about 10-15 minutes and majority of your fruit flies will be gone. Clean the oven thoroughly. OR - (easier, no oven cleaning!!) Place a 1/2" cider vinegar in a small glass and place in the dishwasher with the door ajar. You can add a drop of rinse agent to the vinegar to trap those flies that land. Leave the door slightly ajar overnight. In the morning, VERY GENTLY close the door and run a short wash cycle. Do NOT open the door to see how many flies you have trapped or they will all fly away.

Glass trap method:

Put a piece of fruit in a glass. Cover the glass tightly with plastic wrap and secure to the glass. Put a small hole in the plastic. The fruit flies go in and can't get out.

Wine trap method:

Put a small amount of sweet wine in a little bowl. Take your finger tip and put a very tiny amount of dish soap on it, preferably diluted. Barely touch the surface of the wine at the center with your finger tip. This breaks the surface tension of the wine. The fruit flies will be attracted by the scent of the wine and drown in it. Normally the surface tension of the wine would have protected them from drowning, but with it gone, as they touch the edge of the wine to drink, they will stick to it, fall in and drown. Augment above container traps with commercial house plant gnat trap. Fasten a stick baited with a “Safer Sticky Stick" so that the yellow, sticky trap is just over the entrance to the trap. The flies are attracted to the yellow color and when they land they are stuck. You may trap more flies on the sticky traps than in the actual traps themselves.

Freeze to kill flies and reuse container trap method:

When trap contains many flies, just put it in the freezer for about 10 minutes to kill them. You can then put them back in place without cleaning or refilling them. Discard once traps are full or after a few days. If using rotting food, the flies will have laid eggs in the bait which will hatch in about a week so be sure to freeze and/or discard within a few days.

The catch and release method:

Drop a piece of fruit (preferably rotten) into a large, clean jar such as a Mason jar. Place the jar near the greatest concentration of flies (i.e., if they're hanging around the fruit bowl, put the jar in the fruit bowl). It will take the flies a while to find the jar, but once they do, they'll hang around in there having a little rotten-fruit orgy. Once you see a bunch of flies in there... WHAM!  Then slam a plate down on the top of the jar, but you have to be quick or they'll all fly out.  Escort the flies outside and release them--make sure they all fly out of the jar. Repeat this process until you're finding only one or two flies in the jar at a time (release them too). The idea is that along with getting rid of the food where they were breeding, you get rid of the breeding generation. Important: This process may take several days. You must replace the piece of fruit every day because the flies will have laid eggs on it and if you let them hatch you're back where you started.

Hair dryer method:

Locate the general area of the fruit flies and the nearest plug. Get a hair dryer. Plug in the hair dryer, turn it on (preferably to full heat) and put the back end of the dryer near a hovering fly. It will be sucked in and fried by the hair dryer. This is fun and highly effective! Trying to blow at them with the hot air doesn't work well, but sucking them in like this does.

The old Vacuum method:

Use the funnel trap to collect them in one area. However sometimes with the trap they will just sit on top of the funnel and not go down inside. So take a vacuum cleaner and suck them all of the top of the funnel and out of the air when they try to fly away.

Windex method:

Windex works great for those stray flies that are still lingering after using the traps. Just point and spray, preferably when they are landed on a surface. Give 3 or 4 good up-close sprays. Eventually they will curl up and die.

Hairspray method:

Hairspray also works great for stray flies. Just one spray causes them to fall to the ground and after a few seconds it will dry and stiffen their wings.

Other useful tips:

· If your fruit fly problem has magnified and you have a gas stove with a constant pilot light; place the trap on the warm part of the stove top. This will help spread the smell of the vinegar.

· USE ONLY CIDER or BALSAMIC VINEGAR -Make sure you choose the right type of vinegar. White vinegar does not work. Malt vinegar and red wine work, just not as well as cider. Beer sometimes works, too. Balsamic vinegar also works well.

· Wine works extremely well, and a wine bottle with an inch or so left can be used without an additional funnel. You can forgo the funnel if you put a small bit of dishwashing detergent in the cup with the vinegar and stir. The fruit flies are still attracted to the vinegar smell, and the detergent traps them. The detergent actually reduces the surface tension of the liquid allowing the flies to more readily sink and drown.

· You can forgo the traps. Fruit flies dehydrate easily; a small draft usually does the trick.

· Another simple suggestion is to use a vacuum cleaner with a hose attachment. The fruit flies cannot escape the suction and will die in the process of being sucked in. This is especially helpful when you get a very large "surprise" infestation.

· Fruity smelling dishwashing liquids (lemon, etc.) also attract fruit flies.

· Bourbon also works. Leave the top off of a mostly empty bottle and the bottle will act as a funnel trap.

· Fruit flies breed and live in warm moist places such as a garbage disposal and/or drains in the sink. Cleaning and hot water on a regular basis will combat these possibilities.

· Pour ice down the drain and leave it overnight.

· Hang a few of those old flypaper rolls over the area of infestation. Ugly, but can be effective. These are extremely poisonous though; use with caution and keep out of reach of children.

· Get rid of all your exposed fruit! Once ripened, bananas can be stored in the refrigerator.

· The accumulated scum inside your sink drain is a breeding ground for fruit flies. Use a cheap bottle brush and a hot water rinse to clean out the drain every week or so. The bottle brush must be small enough to fit past the strainer grid. Never stick your hand into a garbage disposal!!!

· Tip from bartenders that constantly fight the fruit fly battle. Cover liquor bottles that have a pour spout on them with a small sheet of cellophane. Clean bottles below the spout with ammonia based cleaner, every other day. Wipe bar down at the end of the night with the same cleaner.

· Fruit flies sense quick movement. Approach them very slowly with a moist paper towel on bathroom mirrors, cabinets, etc. and you'll get them every time.

· Leave an empty bottle of beer open and unattended, they will fly in. recap and throw away.

· Clorox cleaning spray. Wipe down surfaces and dead flies afterwards. Also, ventilate the room you're spraying; the smell can be somewhat overwhelming.  

· If using fresh fruit in your trap, be sure to remove and thoroughly clean it every day - the fruit will give way to larvae surprisingly quickly.

· Vinegars and wines don't allow larvae to survive.

· After cleaning a drain or getting rid of old fruit, peppermint extract will drive them away.

· If you take part of a paper towel and twist it into a wick, place one end into the peppermint extract, leaving part of it on the outside. Tip the bottle to wet the wick.

· Set the bottle of peppermint extract on the counter or by the area that was infested. They will be gone! This works great at home, but also works in bars near the drains.

Time flies like an arrow  -  Fruit flies like a banana.

Simply suck up fruit flies from mid-air with your vacuum's crevice attachment. You can jazz this one up by using a piece of clear Mylar, taped in a cylinder and to your vacuum hose, tape down a couple of cotton swabs dipped in Cider Vinegar inside the tube. Let the flies come to you and when you're ready, turn on the vacuum and foomp...all gone. Works well and fun to watch!

Use a fine mist bottle to spray mobs of flies and they will drop to the surface below. Because their wings are damp, they cannot fly so you can easily squash them without them getting away.

 Things you’ll need for making these traps:

One sheet of paper

One glass or clear plastic cup

Scotch tape/adhesive tape

Cider vinegar or other liquid bait

Plastic two-liter soda bottle method:

Apple Cider

Malt

Red Wine

Bottle of Clorox or store brand bleach

Bottle of Peppermint Extract

Paper towels

Please let us know if you have any other remedies, we would love to hear them!!!

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