How to get rid of fruit flies in an apartment: modern means and folk methods

The fruit fly is a small, harmless insect, but it is always unpleasant to find one in the house. She is attracted by the smell of spoiled fruits and nectar in the flowers of indoor plants. In the warm season, Drosophila can fly into a living room from the street if you simply spray an air freshener with a berry or fruit scent in the room. How to get rid of fruit flies in an apartment? What products should you use?

Where do fruit flies come from in the house?

There are several ways for a fly to enter an apartment:

The insect chooses soft, slightly or severely spoiled fruits as a place for laying eggs, since their peel is easier to bite through. Since both the fly itself and its eggs are small in size, it is almost impossible to notice that a vegetable or fruit is infected.
Fly larvae and eggs can appear in the house along with soil for indoor plants.
Open windows without mosquito nets or open doors are another way for an insect to get into the apartment. Midges fly to the smell of fruits, indoor flowers or spoiled food.

Prevention

To prevent unwanted neighbors from appearing again, you should follow some simple recommendations. First of all, maintain order.

All products must be closed: this especially applies to fruits, berries and cut fruits. Cover them or refrigerate them to prevent rotting.
The same applies to drinks: do not leave juice, lemonade, tea, beer or wine in glasses or open bottles.
Dispose of trash promptly, especially if you throw food waste into the bin.
Do not accumulate dirty dishes in the sink: dishes left overnight may already become the object of attention of food flies in the morning.
Periodically check for pests and larvae in cereals, pasta, nuts and dried fruits. Throw out the infected mercilessly. To prevent voracious bugs from getting into your supplies, store them in airtight containers or jars.
Maintain general cleanliness: Wash all surfaces thoroughly, remembering to look behind cabinets and appliances for dirt.
Systematically clean the drain with special formulas or folk compositions.

As for indoor plants, they should also be properly cared for. Avoid overwatering. If you use tea leaves or other fertilizers, remove them promptly to prevent rotting.

In general, if there is a persistent problem, replace the topsoil before the sciarids colonize it. You can also sprinkle the soil with small pebbles or sand. This not only looks beautiful, but also protects against the dominance of insects.

The midge has a negative attitude towards the specific smell of geranium and avoids it, therefore, standing on the windowsill, it repels pests.

To avoid unwanted residents from the street or neighbors, install mosquito nets on windows and ventilation.

Where to look for fruit fly larvae in an apartment?

To get rid of these small insects, it is not enough to simply destroy the adult individuals - fruit flies reproduce actively, the female is capable of laying about 20 eggs at a time, and in 2 months (this is the lifespan of an adult insect) she can produce up to 2000 eggs. Insects hatch in the early morning, and already 8 hours after this, the female is ready to reproduce. If you do not start fighting Drosophila in time, it will easily fill the entire house.

The most common habitats of midges:

A trash can or a bowl of food for a pet is where optimal conditions are created for the laying of eggs and the accumulation of adult insects, because there is no shortage of food in such a place.
Pots with indoor flowers. Wet soil and fallen leaves that are beginning to rot are also attractive to insects.
Storage areas for vegetables and fruits. If there are several fruits in a container, one of them may begin to deteriorate before the others, and flies will definitely smell it.

Differences between fruit flies and other midges

Midges are unpleasant neighbors that cause a lot of inconvenience to humans

Drosophila belong to the category of dipterous fruit flies. The number of their varieties reaches 2000. The size is 1–3 mm. The insect has an oval body of dark yellow or brown color, 6–8 legs and 2 wings.

Orange and black midges are sometimes found, but this is a fairly rare occurrence.

Drosophila differ from other species of midges in their habitat, degree of danger, reproduction rate and gastronomic preferences. These insects are the most harmless to humans. But their presence causes some troubles:

They spoil food supplies. Moreover, this can be either a large warehouse or a small cellar. If fruit flies take up residence in large food storage facilities, the products will become unusable, resulting in significant losses.
They cause no less harm in private cellars and basements, where bags of sugar, flour, boxes of potatoes or tomatoes are stored. Drosophila can damage fruits that have not yet been collected.
The neighborhood with these midges cannot be called pleasant. They can get into your eyes, nose, mouth, and also contaminate curtains and wallpaper.

How to deal with fruit fly?

Having noticed the appearance of uninvited guests in the house, you need to carefully inspect the apartment and find all the spoiled food: fruit forgotten on the table, sour leftover food in the trash can, pet food in a bowl that has spoiled in the heat. If tea leaves are used as a fertilizer for indoor flowers, you also need to inspect the pots with soil.

All detected possible sources of Drosophila must be disposed of immediately by sending them to the trash. Containers for storing fruits and vegetables should be thoroughly washed to remove larvae and eggs invisible to the eye from the surfaces.

Flowers need to be transplanted into pots with fresh soil. If some of the leaves or flowers of the plant begin to rot, they are removed. The indoor plants themselves are watered often, but little by little - waterlogged soil attracts midges.

Traditional methods

To clear your apartment of midges, you can build your own traps:

Since one of the Drosophila's favorite treats is banana, it can be used as bait. Peel the fruit and place it in a plastic bag or plastic bottle. Using a toothpick, make several holes in polyethylene or plastic. Leave the trap near the midge habitat. Over the next 2 days, a significant portion of the midges will fly inside, but they will not be able to get out.
Just as much as bananas, the fruit fly Drosophila loves honey, fruit juice or apple cider vinegar. The trap is made like this: take a deep container, pour one of the listed liquids into it, and cover it with a bag or cling film. Make holes with a toothpick. Insects attracted by the smell will climb into the trap.
Another possible option is to use a glass jar. A piece of banana, orange or any spoiled fruit is placed at the bottom. A cone is made from a sheet of paper with a small hole at the top. Turning it over, insert the blank into the neck of the bottle. The midges will easily get inside the jar, but they will not be able to fly back out.
Beer, water diluted with sugar and yeast are poured into a disposable glass and left close to the accumulation of insects. Hearing a tempting smell, the midges will fly towards it and drown.

In addition to traps, you can use other means.

Smoking

The crushed hard camphor is placed in an old frying pan (one that you don’t mind throwing away) and put on fire. As soon as the frying pan is hot and steam starts to flow, the container is carried throughout all rooms of the apartment. The resulting smoke is not dangerous for humans, but midges will not tolerate it.

Poison for midges

A couple of recipes for poisonous treats for insects:

½ cup of milk is mixed with 40 g of sugar and the same amount of ground black pepper. Soak a paper napkin or a piece of toilet paper in the liquid and place it on a plate next to the midges. After a while there will be no insects left.
10 g of honey is combined with 1 g of saccharin, and a napkin is moistened with this mixture. Place it on the windowsill.

Vacuum cleaner

The place where midges have accumulated is treated with a vacuum cleaner. A running unit will draw in insects, trapping them in a dust bag. The container must be emptied outside the apartment.

Cold

Drosophila are very sensitive to temperature; hypothermia is detrimental to them. If they attacked the apartment in winter, it is enough to simply leave the window in the kitchen open when leaving the house. After a few hours, all the flies will die.

This way you can destroy adult insects, but if there are larvae left somewhere, then after a while the insects will appear again. To prevent this from happening, it is recommended to thoroughly wash the pet’s trash can and bowl, and water the soil in flower pots with a manganese solution.

Potassium permanganate or matches

This method is suitable if there are flies on the plant. Prepare a weak solution of manganese and treat flowers with it twice a month.

You can also use regular matches: stick them head down into the ground in the pot. The sulfur from the match will destroy the larvae.

Geranium

Fruit flies cannot tolerate the smell of geraniums. If there are midges in the kitchen, you need to get rid of the spoiled fruit and place a pot with this plant on the windowsill of the room.

Garlic

Midges do not like the smell of garlic, so placing the crushed head near the Drosophila habitat helps. After a few hours there will be no insects.

Orange and clove

A stick of spice is stuck into the orange peel and placed next to the place where midges gather.

Store products

How to get rid of fruit flies if you don’t have time to bother with building traps or preparing poisonous compounds? You can use ready-made traps or preparations.

Manufacturers offer a choice of:

Repellents. Tapes impregnated with chemical compounds, from which vapors that poison insects emanate. Such products cannot be called completely safe for humans - the room in which the tape is located must be ventilated.
Sprays. Special liquids containing fatty acids, falling on larvae and insects, destroy them. They are not dangerous to humans.
Zappers. Modern devices that affect insects with electricity. The only drawback of some models is their high power consumption.
Traps. Factory-made traps do not contain poison; most of them use a substance that attracts insects, and the midge that flies into the trap dies of hunger, unable to get out. You can even install such devices in the kitchen without fear that they will harm a person or animal.

Why do insects appear?

It should be immediately noted that fruit flies are not capable of causing significant harm to human health, but they can cause a lot of trouble due to their annoying nature. The annoying midges appear where there is always something to eat, so the kitchen becomes the favorite place. Midges feed on the juice of fruits and vegetables, so as soon as the process of rotting begins in them, they immediately appear. Another characteristic of fruit flies is that they multiply very quickly, and after just a couple of hours the midges become twice as large. If you don’t fight them, they will scatter throughout the room and cause you a lot of trouble.

The question immediately arises: how do midges get into our house? Everything is very simple, they are already present in plant foods, and to be more precise, the eggs, once laid by an adult, are found on fruits and vegetables. Midges can also appear in flower pots, since their eggs can be found in the soil.

Naturally, having noticed fruit flies in their kitchen, every person asks the question: how to quickly get rid of fruit flies? Let's figure it out.

Preventive measures

It’s not difficult to prevent the appearance of fruit flies in your apartment; all you need to do is:

keep clean;
regularly (at least once a day) take out the bucket;
wash dishes immediately after a meal;
Throw away spoiled fruits immediately;
Do not leave food in your pet’s bowl for a long time, remove it as soon as the animal eats.

If the midges have nothing to eat, they will not appear in the apartment.

Even if midges have infested your apartment, you should not immediately rush to the store for chemicals - you can get rid of them using traditional methods, without the use of toxic substances.

How to get rid of eggs

Since adult insects lay eggs on ripe fruits, getting rid of them is quite simple:

Wash the brought fruits or vegetables thoroughly under the tap.
Next, pour boiling water over them.
All vegetables and fruits must be kept in the refrigerator, since the reproduction process does not occur here.

It is a little more difficult to get rid of midge eggs from indoor plants:

The flower from the pot should be replanted.
The leaves should be wiped with soapy water or alcohol.
Next, the soil changes. It is good to use a purchased substrate. It is specially treated against all kinds of parasites.
When using soil from planting, you need to do your own preventative measures.
Place the soil on a tray and put it in the oven for a couple of hours.
All parasites in the soil will die during this period.
Plants are treated with a floral remedy against midges.
Rotten roots are cut off.
Next, prepare a warm solution with potassium permanganate, into which the plant is lowered for a few minutes. A weak concentration is used.
Then plant the flower in a pot. All fruit fly eggs will be destroyed.
When further caring for the plant, do not forget to loosen the soil and monitor excess moisture.

Use of chemicals

It is worth poisoning midges with purchased products only in extreme cases, if there are too many of them. They can harm residents, so you should try folk remedies first.

If you still cannot do without the use of chemicals, you need to buy any repellent. They need to be sprayed in the kitchen, after removing all open food and drinks. Regular Dichlorvos will help, as well as mosquito repellents - for example, electric fumigators. Turpentine or kerosene works well. With their help, you can get rid of uninvited guests very quickly.

When using household chemicals, you should remember the safety rules. You can only spray products while wearing gloves. You should try not to inhale harmful fumes. There should be no pets or people nearby during the procedure. After treating the room, all surfaces in it - cabinets, countertops, floors - should be washed. The kitchen needs to be well ventilated.

Any store-bought repellent will work against midges.

You can make an effective remedy for fruit gnats with your own hands. You need to fill a spray bottle with 70 percent medical alcohol and spray it on flying insects. 95% liquid will also work. This is a cheap product that gives guaranteed results. During the procedure, be sure to wear gloves and ventilate the room. This method is safer than using household chemicals.

Important! Having gotten rid of the adults, you need to deal with their larvae. A good cleaning of the room will help.

Window cleaner will also help against flying pests. You need to find a place where midges accumulate, spray the product on it, and wipe the surface. A cleaning spray containing chlorine will also work.

Plain water can slightly disorient fruit flies. You need to spray it on the midges so that they fall down. Their wings will become damp and they will not be able to fly into the air. This way they can be removed with a rag.

A product containing pyrethrin will help get rid of midges. It will save you from adults, but not from larvae. The product must be used according to the instructions in the instructions. Spraying it on food is prohibited. Special pyrethrin sprays with fragrances are now sold. They can be hung at home in places where fruit flies are spotted.

If you can’t cope on your own, you can always call exterminators. For a reasonable fee, they can quickly remove pests.

How effective are aerosols in combat?

If midges appear on fruit (we are now finding out how to get rid of it), then, of course, in this case it is worth resorting to chemical treatment using aerosols. Today there are quite a lot of such products, so purchasing them in a store will not be difficult.

Naturally, such substances should be used infrequently, since they have a rather unpleasant odor and can affect the health of not only midges, but also people themselves. Using aerosols, the entire surface in the kitchen or in the place where insects love to be is treated, after which it is necessary to ventilate the room.

How to remove fruit flies using traditional methods

A good remedy against these insects is ordinary table vinegar. To do this, all cabinets and shelves for storing food are washed with soapy water. Then all surfaces are wiped with a solution of table vinegar. Additionally, strong-smelling substances are placed in areas where fruit flies accumulate. Garlic cloves, orange peels, and lavender leaves are suitable for this.

Camphor aroma works well against fruit flies. Camphor is crushed into pieces and fried in a dry frying pan. When smoke starts, remove the container from the heat and carry it through all the rooms. In rooms where flies accumulate more than other rooms, it is worth staying longer. Camphor is not dangerous for people and animals. Therefore, there is no need to remove anyone from the apartment before such treatment.

Butterfly (sewer flies)

The most dangerous type of small midge that can settle in a human home. They grow up to 2 mm. The body is covered with small hairs. One clutch of a female contains 100 eggs. Under favorable conditions they reproduce very quickly.

Butterfly

They feed on decomposed organic matter in drains. The habitat of small flies is sewer pipes, drains, drains. These are not fruit flies, which simply disturb with their presence; butterflies carry a lot of pathogenic bacteria on their paws; there are known cases of allergies to this midge. They are food for spiders and other insects that appear if you do not fight the fly.

Fighting the butterfly:

Using a cable and then chlorine-based chemicals, clean all pipes.
Clean the trash can promptly and efficiently.
If there is a pet tray in the bathroom, then carefully monitor its cleanliness.
You can put containers in which apple cider vinegar and vegetable oil are mixed.
Treat all surfaces in the bathroom with chlorine-containing products.

Insecticides are used to treat sewer pipes.

Harm and benefit

Since the habitat and reproduction of the fruit midge is sewage (garbage cans, vegetable and fruit waste, garden fruit rot, sewage, spoiled food), it is a source of the spread of infectious intestinal diseases, so combating it is mandatory. Drosophila may be a factor influencing the manifestation of allergies.

Despite these facts, many terrariums and fish farms breed fruit flies as food for reptiles, amphibians and fish. Aquarium fish also love to eat fruit flies.

Getting rid of it using traps

Today, there are many ways to get rid of fruit flies at home, in addition to folk remedies. For example, special traps have recently been widely used. They are small containers with a small hole. Inside the container there is a bait that attracts fruit flies so much. This method is excellent, since there are rooms where, for some reason, chemical treatment is prohibited. Let's look at what traps exist:

1. Trap in the form of a jar. Something sweet is placed in a glass container, a paper funnel is inserted inside, through which the midges sink to the bottom. Once inside, they can no longer get out.

2. A sticky trap can be made independently and at home. To do this, you need to boil sugar syrup, pour it into a saucer and place it where midges like to be most. Having arrived to feast, they will stick to the syrup and die.

3. You can buy adhesive tape in the store, the effect is that a special composition is applied to the tape that attracts fruit flies, and when they sit on it, they instantly stick.

Description and behavioral features of fruit flies

Fruit flies are small insects whose body size does not exceed 1.7 mm in males and 2.5 mm in females. The color is yellow-brown or yellow-gray with transverse dark stripes on the abdomen, the wings are transparent. A distinctive feature of fruit flies is their large red eyes.

Unlike fruit moths, whose adults do not eat, fruit flies feed at both the larval and adult stages. Their food is plant sap and rotting organic matter, but midges prefer fruit.

Fruit midge

Females lay eggs on the surface of the fruit, within a day the larvae hatch, after 5-6 days they pupate and after another 5 days small midges are born. During her life, the female lays 350 – 400 eggs.