NEWS

Here's how to prevent fruit flies from raiding your home

Cincinnati Enquirer

Have a fruit fly problem? A local college dean has solutions.

"It's very common to find them this time of year," said Gene Kritsky, the dean of behavioral and natural sciences at Mount St. Joseph University.

The 1/8-inch long, red-eyed nuisances are drawn to ripened fruit and vegetables and infiltrate the indoors in the summer months especially, Kritsky said.

A fruit fly rests on a dish towel. The nuisance insect can be deterred with some simple household cleaning methods, said a local college dean.

But a few simple steps can prevent them from raiding your home.

Fruit flies are coming indoors during this time of the year. For the simplest fruit-fly trap, just set out a glass of wine and add some dish detergent. Label the glass so no one drinks the liquid. After landing on this liquid for a drink, fruit flies become wet and are unable to take off again.

The flies mature from egg to adult in about a week, and their breeding sites include moist, fermenting spaces: garbage disposals, empty bottles, trash, soiled rags used to clean spills.

Even the "finest restaurants in Cincinnati" occasionally must combat fruit flies, Kritsky said, especially when the wine starts flowing.

But "good house management or kitchen management will take care of it," Kritsky said.

He recommended taking out the trash about once every two days, cleaning out disposals by squirting a few drops of dish soap into them and running the blades, storing bananas in the refrigerator and taking up arms should those methods fail.

Fruit flies' breeding sites include garbage disposals and trash cans.

Pesticides can deter fruit flies, Kritsky said, but they shouldn't be sprayed in food preparation areas.

You can also fill a bowl or glass with a sweet liquid — Gatorade or cider vinegar works — and make a paper funnel that is narrow on the bottom.

Place the funnel in the container with space between the bottom of it and the liquid.

In this undated image provided by the University of California San Francisco, a male fruit fly drinks alcohol-laced food from from a tube. In the Friday, March 16, 2012 issue of the journal Science, researchers say sexually deprived male fruit flies are driven to excessive alcohol consumption, drinking far more than comparable, sexually satisfied male flies. (AP Photo/University of California, San Francisco, G. Ophir)

"That's a very good method," Kritsky said. "Make your own trap. ... They'll fly in but can't necessarily fly out."

Michelle Mink wrote in a Facebook thread with tips that she pours sweet wine and a drop of dish soap into a cup, covers it with plastic wrap and pokes a few holes in the film.

"The flies are attracted to it, and once they're in the substance, they drown," she wrote. "My cup was filled with them within hours!"

Michelle Mink pours sweet wine into a cup and covers it with plastic wrap, poking holes in the top. After they enter, the flies are trapped.