Thursday, July 5, 2012

Favorite helpful trick!

Fruit flies love to take over our house in the Spring and
Summer time, especially when Aaron brings in the boxes full of fruit to keep cool before we have the fruit stand on Saturday mornings. I honestly think at times that TV show on Animal Planet called Infested could do a story at our home on fruit flies. I can't stand them.  They annoy me to no end!  I didn't know how to get rid of them until I posted something on facebook one day about them and a friend told me about this little trick. It's such a great trick I figured I should share with you ;)

All you need is a clean jar, a plastic bag, some rubber bands,  a needle or nail or something poky, and some fruit.  I have found the best things are bananas and cantaloupe or honeydew. Put the fruit at the bottom of the jar, cover the top with a plastic bag tight, and securely rubber band the top.  Grab a safety pin or needle and poke tiny holes in the top of the plastic back on top of the jar.  Make sure they are big enough for the flies to climb into, but not too big to make it easy for them to escape.  Fruit flies are blind, they get around by their sense of  smell, so they can find their way into the jar by smelling the fruit, but can't find their way out.  After they are trapped, I always put tape over the holes just in case one gets lucky and finds it way out.   This little contraption really does work very, very well. I hope you find it as helpful as I have!

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I do something similar. But instead of fruit, I use a little vinegar with a drop of dish soap. The fruit flies are attracted to the vinegar and the dish soap breaks the surface tension so the flies sink and drown. You can leave it out for much longer since the vinegar doesn't go bad and the flies are killed and not just trapped.