DIY Homemade Fruit-Fly Terror-Traps

 

 Hi all! What inspired this blog was my recent infestation of fruit-fly "terrors" upon which i desperately scoured the web for any/all useful combat advice. The result is my below list followed by photo's which encompass my experiences as well as my detective work.

SO: First read this list.... Then see my photo's further down.

Because this list may be updated with periodic new realizations.

1. Many people resort to vacuum cleaners, hand-vacs, and even Bug-A-Salt "salt-guns" to combat fruit-flies. So as your first line of defense, you can choose from any/all of those tactics.
   
   
2. Each night of your infestation, clean your kitchen & bath drains with baking-soda, vinegar & hot water (or Bleach or Oxy-based cleaner). Because flies breed quickly in yucky drains. FYI, I've also seen advice to put Bleach-soaked newspapers underneath garbage-bag, at base of garbage-can.😁
   
   
3. As for Plug-In Traps - if you can afford it, research "Katchy" followed by researching Ebay for Flying Insect Plug-ins, as well as Flying Insect Refills (or glue cards). The two need to be compatible. Just beware😬 of these factors: Blue light isn't so healthy, so keep it a distance from your body & your eyes. Also UV-plug-ins can emit a humming noise. Above all, Glue-Cards can be defective or expired, thus not sticky enough to keep flies from escaping. For comparison, research Veyofly and Safer and Mosalogic, on Amazon and Ebay. They're sorta similar, though as stated, some may come with defective glue-cards which flies escape from. As for Raid, i've seen advice that its transparent front-facade is bad design, since flies may hover on its bright front-side rather than at the sticky back-side where you want them.
   
   
4. Most importantly: Enter the dizzy-perspective of a fruit-fly. Realize they navigate via Sight & Scent. Read on:
   
   
5. Introducing Freddy FruitFly:  "Hi, I'm sniffing out a food-source. I'm desperate for the scent of Fermented-Fruity apple-cider vinegar. Lots of that, but with only a small drop of Liquor mixed in. See, because Liquor & Wine are higher in ethyl-alcohol than Beer, I can tolerate more of the latter. I mean, don't you know that the lower alcohol content of beer is less of a health-risk to my beloved eggs? Don't get me wrong, I LOVE liquor & wine, but in lesser quantities! I also bet you didn't know that the smell of dish-soap disgusts me, did you? Now while one the one hand, I'm stupidly unaware that humans lay traps to drown me, yet on the other hand, humans don't seem to realize its unnecessary to add soap to traps, as long as the traps have sensibly-made lids. 😎 They also don't have to bother adding banana, rotted-fruit, or sugar, because CiderVinegar+Booze covers practically all bases. But if they use lemon-juice instead of cider-vinegar, it might be advisable to add some sugar and/or rotting fruit (that's aside from the alcoholic base.) With that said, my brother will now take over. Read on."
   
   
6. Introducing Freaky FruitFly: "Hi, I've just sighted a source of light and heading over there, but oh boy, I've become distracted by a foil-wrapper that's sparkling due to light shining on it, so shall i rather go there? And next I'll fly over to that exciting lemon-yellow nightshirt the lady is wearing, and from there, hop onto the bright newspaper she's reading, that's brightened by her bedside lamp... It may interest, that her darling husband set up a UV Plug-in to trap me. 😏  But just because he's handy that doesn't mean he was intuitive enough to know he should have taped a more eye-catching white sheet of paper behind the plug-in, in order to lure me. A smart guy advised this online. But fortunately for me, even if there is a white paper to lure me, I might still escape if the glue-card is defective or expired, thus not being sticky enough. A smart Amazon-reviewer proved this, by cutting a hole in the middle of a name-brand glue-card, which she laid over a cider-vinegar cup. Indeed, the cider-vinegar lured my fellow fruit flies, which landed on the card near the luscious-smelling hole. But then the Lord had mercy on my friends, as they were able to fly away, due to the Barely-sticky glue-card.
   

Now here's my pictures

(Click to Enlarge):