DIY Fruit Fly Traps
This post may contain affiliate or sponsored links. Please read our disclosure policy.
Banish fruit flies with any or all of these easy options. We provide 3 DIY fruit fly trap ideas plus suggest a few you can purchase. These are the most effective homemade fruit fly traps to get rid of pests for good
DIY Trap #1: Apple Cider Vinegar and Dish Soap Trap
Why it Works:
They love the scent of the apple cider vinegar. The dish soap makes it so that they can’t sit on top of the water and drink it.
How to Make it:
Mix a splash of apple cider vinegar and a few drops of dish soap in a bowl. Stir it up, sit it out. Within an hour or two, there will be less fruit flies buzzing around, and several in each dish!
DIY Trap #2: Plastic Bag Method
Why it Works:
Fruit flies will find their way into the jar but not their way out.
How to Make It:
Simply cut the corner off of a plastic bag. Secure it over a jar of apple cider vinegar & some scraps of fruit to lure them in. Make sure the cut corner is pointing down towards the vinegar.
Method #3: The Bubble Death Trap
We stumbled on this method accidentally after leaving dishes in the sink but it worked!
Why it Works:
Fruit flies are drawn to the scent in the cup and land on the bubbles. The soap kills them.
How to Make It:
Add a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar to a cup. Squirt a little dish soap into it and fill it up so bubbles are sitting on top.
Method #4: Purchase a Fruit Fly Trap
If homemade traps aren’t proving effective for you, you can resort to purchasing a commercial fruit fly trap in stores.
Here are two options I’ve used that have both been effective
Option 1: Terro Fruit Fly Traps:
A similar design to the apple cider/vinegar method. I like the little window on the side so you can see how many you have caught.
Option 2: Sticky Traps
We place these around fruit bowls or plants. They are the lowest maintenance option and catch quite a few of those little devils.
FAQs
They can also enter your home through open doors and windows or in produce you’ve brought home. They lay their eggs on such food sources, leading to infestations.
They work to minimize the amount of fruit flies in your home but they will not 100% eradicate them.
Rapidly! Which is why you can have an infestation very quickly. Under optimal conditions, a single female fruit fly can lay up to 500 eggs during her lifespan, which is usually around 40 to 50 days. Yikes!
When we had a BIG infestation, the bubbly water one worked great. For keeping their population under control, I use a combination of the stick traps you buy and the plastic bag method.
ACV and dish soap for the win……I use this simple method all the time, and it WORKS!
Oh, and I usually keep a bottle of “the cheap stuff” around just for this purpose. No sense wasting my natural, more expensive (raw) apple cider vinegar on the little critters.
This comes at a perfect time, this little bugas have been driving me crazy trying to Getty into my sourdough starter, Kombucha, and ginger beer. Thank you! I am so doing this NOW! Lol, ;0)
I’ve been using this recipe today and counted about 20 fruit flies floating in the muck.
I SO needed this tip a few weeks ago. We couldn’t get rid of the fruit flies for days!! They drive you crazy, don’t they? Thanks for the tip!