In article , rachael simpson
wrote:

Hey Y'all!
Does anyone have any tips on how to get rid of fruit flies? The kids and
I were gone for the weekend and left the hubby at home to tend to the
farm. While we were gone he decided to cut open a watermelon and then
left half of it out on the table. When we got home the fruit flies had
taken over the kitchen! How disgusting! I've tried everything I can
think of to get rid of them, but they just seem to be getting worse!
Please keep in mind that I much prefer chemical free remedies.
Thanks!
~Rae

The main thing is to stop feeding them. Keep all table surfaces
scrupulously clean. Don't leave wet dog or catfood out. Clean out the sink
drains with bleach. Take the trash out a couple times a day; if you use an
indoor trash can sterilze the interior bottom. Keep fruit in tightly
sealing freezer-baggies or rubbermaid lidded containers. Don't keep any
flower bouquets for a while. If you have a potato bin, move the taters to
a sealable can for a while. Keep all the fruit in the refrigerator for the
time being. They only live a couple days, so unless you're still providing
a medium for them to reproduce, they should be gone quite soon.

Baited fruitfly traps are available at the hardware store but I've never
needed them. Whenever I've had an outbreak of fruitflies the cause was
obvious, either not wiping up well after cutting fruits, or not doing the
dishes often enough, it's usually pretty easy to figure out and quickly
repairable.

You can make a trap with a jar, put a quarter-inch of red wine in the jar,
and tape a funnel for a lid pointed down. The flies find their way in
easily, but not so easily out, and drown in the wine instead of making
maggots. Alternatively, use a paper cup with banana chunk or banana skin
or grossly overripe nectarine in the bottom, make a paper cone to fit over
the top. When the cup is full of flies, wrap it in a baggy and toss it in
the outdoor trash. Repeat until flies are gone. Best baits have a bit of
mold or nasty stuff on them as the fruitflies don't actually go for the
fruit, they go for live yeast growing on rotting fruit.

Since they started on the watermelon you can be pretty sure what they are,
but sometimes what seems to be fruitflies turns out to be some other tiny
fly and what gets rid of fruitflies won't work; they won't go away until
you figure out which indoor flower pot they're breeding either in the
potting soil or on some houseplant.

-paghat the ratgirl
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