Homemade Fruit Fly Traps – How to Make Your Own

There are quite a few ways to make your own fruit fly traps.

But first – take the first step – how to get rid of fruit flies – the best defense is a good offense.

ITS TIME

Now the fun begins. It's time to make like a S.W.A.T. team (I really can't pardon the pun, but I can't help myself either ). The good news is that you don't actually need to swat anything.

Here is what you need to do.

• Take plastic wrap and stretch it over some kind of disposable bowl

• Place a ripe banana peel in it (they love bananas)

• Poke tiny holes in the plastic. I did mine with a sharp knife tip, you may be able to use small sharp scissors. The idea is that they can climb in led by the scent of the banana but they can't find their way out.

• You can live release them by taking the trap outside and removing the plastic.

These traps really do work. I made a few when we had them over Christmas.

But I have a tale of woe and a hint for you.

Don't leave it sitting on the counter top when you have company over for dinner.

MY TALE OF FRUIT FLY WOE 

Last Christmas we had dinner at our house. I worked hard to prepare to make it nice, we don't usually have it here.

As could be expected, everyone showed up, including the fruit flies. Swarms of them. 

I laid a trap, and managed to catch a bunch.

Somehow, I'm not quite sure how, someone moved the trap to our kitchen sink area. At dish time I got to relax while my husband, his brother and his brother's girlfriend did the dishes.

Sweet!

Except that I didn't realize the fruit fly trap was buzzing with fruit flies right beside the kitchen sink.

So they were doing the dishes amongst the flies.

I am still aghast.

It's one of those good illustrations as to why I can be seen rolling my eyeballs and saying, "It figures" while breathing 10x deeply.

To this day, I don't know what was attracting them to the kitchen. We must have had something there somewhere but I never did find it. 

It could have even been the garbage or our recycle bin although I didn't notice any flies in them. You have to watch EVERYTHING. 

Even now they are a problem if we have any fruit or compost in the kitchen at all.

I am hoping that it has been the year for fruit flies and that next year they will relocate!

MORE METHODS TO MAKE YOUR OWN FRUIT FLY TRAPS

I found quite a few good methods on how to make homemade fruit fly traps that are non toxic, natural and cheap to make after doing a bit of searching around.

Here are a few that I found.

Build A Better Fruit Fly Trap - this blog outlines how to make a trap using cider vinegar instead. It may top the bananas because it also drowns them. I hate to be cruel (I live trap mice with my team – 3 cats and a dog and an empty yogurt container – really! My husband shakes his head.) but sometimes you need to draw the line.

My Favourite Fruit Fly Trap – I am going to switch! This one looks really easy to make, no more messing with plastic wrap and trying to make tiny holes. I love this entire site.

Now I've Seen Everything – RIP Homemade Fruit Fly Death Trap – You can get a free pdf to print out a fancy smanshy paper funnel for your own homemade fruit fly death trap. What will they think of next? I'm getting one!