If you see small flies in your kitchen, they probably are fruit flies. Fruit flies are present all year long but during summers they are very much common. The reason being, the fruits get overly ripened thus attracting fruit flies.
Here we will be discussing about few methods of getting rid of those creatures.
- The very first way is to eliminate the source of the fruit flies. Make sure the ripen fruits are eaten, discarded or refrigerated. The damaged portions of the fruits and vegetables should be cut and thrown away.
- Make sure that the soil in the flower pots you use in garden should be of good quality as low- quality soil attracts fruit flies.
- Make sure to clean all the dirty dishes before sleeping. Larvae get developed in those stinky and dirty dishes causing an invitation to thousands of fruit flies.
- Use the trash cans with lids. Dont leave the trash cans open as the smell will attract the fruit flies. Make sure to throw the garbage frequently, at least once in a day. If possible, do the waste segregation in home itself. Use two dustbins, one for wet and one for dry waste and make sure to clean the dustbins frequently so that the bad odour is prevented.
- Mix two tablespoons of vinegar in one tablespoon of sugar, few drops of soap and a litre of water. Mix it well and pour it in a container. Keep the container near the place where you find most of the fruit flies. Usually, the insects get attracted to the smell of the vinegar and because of the soap, they get trapped in the liquid.
- Other than this, vinegar can be used in a number of ways to prevent the fruit flies as they cannot resist the scent of vinegar.
- Another method using vinegar is that open the bottle of vinegar and cover the opening with a plastic wrap. Put a rubber band around it and poke one or two holes in it. The flies will enter through those holes due to the attraction but will not be able to come out of those.
You can create a number of ways like this. Use your creativity.
- Above method can also be repeated by using banana slices, red wine, rotten fruits and other items whose smell is as strong as them and are attractive to fruit flies.
- Fogging products and other pesticides can be used if the number of the fruit flies is very high. But keep in mind that the pesticides should be used only in the supervision of pest control.
- Fruit fly trapping strips is another method with which these flies can be trapped. These are easily available in shopping marts. The best thing about them is that they are odourless and dont have much work to do. Just hang these strips in the affected area and the flies will automatically get trapped in them.
Fruit flies can become a nuisance once they get developed around the house. The major problem with them is that they are extremely small and start breeding very easily which makes it difficult to get rid of them. These flies are common in homes, restaurants, vegetable marts, and other places where the food is allowed to rot. They lay their eggs on top of the fermenting food or other moist materials. The re-productivity of fruit flies is very large. At a point of time, they can lay as much as 500 eggs. Fruit flies themselves are not responsible for any kind of disease but they have the potential to contaminate food with bacteria and attract other disease- causing microbes. Hence, it is necessary to eliminate even the slightest possibility of breeding of fruit flies.
