Winning the War Against Fruit Flies

Fruit flies invaded our home recently. We tried everything imaginable short of spraying chemicals. We put out a variety of concoctions such as apple cider vinegar, juice, etc. as traps to catch and drown them.

We tried covering all the sink drains to keep them from water, we took out the garbage regularly and quickly removed any fruit or vegetable peelings. By the way, we did determine that there was a spoiling sweet potato among some in a bag, and that seemed to be what was attracting them!

Soon, we decided that our particular fruit flies were multiplying instead of decreasing. As usual, my solution was to spend hours looking all over the web for what else might be tried.

Something that seemed particularly plausible was that though they are hard to catch, swat, or eradicate in any other non-chemical way, they are no match for a vacuum cleaner wand! I left the vacuum in the kitchen for about a week.

Several times a day my husband would hear me "vacuuming the air" around the kitchen. I'd go to make coffee and first vacuum every fruit fly I could see. He'd ask for a snack, and hear the vacuum going for a few seconds first.

I'd say I was going to cook dinner, but spend the first few seconds chasing fruit flies. Yes, he teased me a lot about that. But it was amazing how I'd clear the kitchen of all visible fruit flies, then come back in half an hour, and there were half a dozen more flying around the sink!

However, with patience and those few seconds of work many times a day, they slowly and steadily went away for good. Of course, you're on your own in explaining it when people come over for coffee, and see you suddenly start vacuuming the air, the ceiling, the sink's edge, the coffee maker, etc.

By Mary LaCaze from Mountain Pine, AR