Directions. Place the overripe fruit or pour about an inch of apple cider vinegar into the jar. Add a drop of liquid dish soap. Cover the top of the jar with a small square of plastic wrap, and tie it closed with string.
Pour some cider vinegar into a pot or jar to start making your fly repellent. Add one drop of dishwashing liquid. Cover the pot with cling film and pierce it in several places. Leave in areas where you have seen flies.
Vinegar (or acetic acid) is the ultimate product of the fermentation process in fruit, which is why fruit flies are attracted to vinegar odor. However, both low and high concentrations of vinegar odor leave flies indifferent (left).
It's easy to make a fruit fly trap: Fill a clear bowl/jar with 2 inches of white vinegar, cover with plastic wrap, and poke a few holes in the wrap with a toothpick. Place it in the kitchen sink or near where you've noticed the fruit flies.
The best homemade fly trap is one that can attract both house flies and fruit flies. To lure both outdoors, mix scraps of rotting meat, like fish or chicken, with sugar or honey. When indoors, the best bait is old fruit or honey.
The Efficacy of Honey
Well, it's definitely going to help you more than vinegar generally will, at least (though apple cider vinegar can be used to attract them too). Flies may be attracted to the sweetness of honey. Of course, that sweetness can be a fly's downfall, since it's also quite sticky.
Experts swear by apple cider vinegar traps as the best way to get rid of fruit flies. You can also use white vinegar in a pinch.
If the flies are attracted to your trap, but aren't going it, chances are your holes are too small (or too large), increase the size of the holes. Or if too large, replace the plastic wrap and try again. Happy catching!
The sugar, apple cider vinegar, and dish soap all attract flies as they smell so good to them, but once inside, they fall into the liquid and drown.
Flies are repelled by vinegar, and the smell of boiling vinegar can make them leave. Pour some malt vinegar in a pot or pan, let it boil, and wait for the flies to desperately try to escape.
If fruit flies aren't going into the vinegar, make sure it's apple cider vinegar you're using in the trap. 'Plain white vinegar does will not attract fruit flies because it has no fruity scent,' says Diane Kuthy. And if it is the right sort of vinegar, don't use it cold.
Method #1: Apple Cider Vinegar and Liquid Soap Trap
Make a simple but powerful fruit fly trap by putting a small amount of apple cider vinegar in a small mason jar with a couple of drops of liquid soap, such as baby shampoo (which is optional). If you added soap, mix well and cover the jar with a layer of foil.
Flies hate the smell of essential oils like lemon grass, peppermint, lavender and eucalyptus – put a few drops in a spray bottle and use around the house daily. They also hate the smell of camphor (a traditional moth deterrent) which you can buy online, cloves and cinnamon.
Luckily, they're attracted to anything sweet — simple syrup, honey and fruit — so you shouldn't have to look too far to find something to entice them.
If you've got fruit flies buzzing around your house, you can create a simple trap to capture them with a bowl, plastic wrap and apple cider vinegar. Place a small amount of the vinegar in a bowl and cover it tightly with plastic wrap.
Fruit flies especially think vinegar is good—particularly apple cider vinegar, says Hedges. But if you put a cup of apple cider vinegar out on your counter—a common trap tactic—you won't kill the pests. You will only make the problem worse, since fruit flies can actually breed in the cup.
Mix a half cup of salt, half cup of baking soda, and one cup of vinegar, and pour the mixture down the drain. You can follow that with boiling water a few hours later.
Cinnamon – use cinnamon as an air freshner, as flies hate the smell! Lavender, eucalyptus, peppermint and lemongrass essential oils – Not only will spraying these oils around the house create a beautiful aroma, but they will also deter those pesky flies too.
If you find your fruit flies impervious to your plastic wrap or paper cone traps, try adding three drops of dish soap to a bowl of vinegar and leave it uncovered. The soap cuts the surface tension of the vinegar so the flies will sink and drown.
Within just a few days the fruit flies will begin to enter the trap and start to diminish around the home.