Ah, fruit flies: the mini menaces of the kitchen that revel in rot and glory in garbage. Whether they’ve congregated atop a fast-ripening fruit bowl or a countertop pail of food scraps, they can be hard to spot until it’s too late. 

Is it annoying when they swarm your face and ruin that piece of fruit you were looking forward to? Yes. Are they easy to get rid of? Also yes. All it takes is a few solid preventative measures, and a homemade trap or two if things get out of hand.

What are fruit flies?

Fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster) are a species of fly identifiable by their small, yellow-brown bodies and signature red eyes. They’re related to the house and horse fly, but distinct from their equally-pesky doppelganger, fungus gnats, which thrive in overly-moist potting soil or bathroom drains. 

“Drosophila” can be translated from the Latin “dew-loving,” a nod to the insect’s preference for the moist, fermenty surfaces of rotting fruit and vegetables. Contrary to what their everyday name might suggest, they don’t necessarily have a fondness for fruit or other sweet substances, but for the microorganisms (like yeast, various bacteria, and mold spores) that power the process of fermentation and decay. Adult flies lay their eggs in this environment, and feed on the organisms at the surface.

And they lay more than just a few eggs. Female fruit flies lay hundreds of eggs in their lifetime, and those eggs hatch and mature into adult flies in only five days. 

Though it can feel like fruit flies appear out of thin air, they do have a few common points of origin. Adult fruit flies, which can fly up to nine miles at a stretch, can enter your home through open doors and windows. Larvae or unhatched fruit fly eggs can hitch a ride on ripe produce you picked up from a farmer’s market or grocery store. 

Why do fruit flies love your kitchen in the first place?

Fruit flies are attracted to volatile esters, organic compounds that react with water to create alcohol and organic or inorganic acids. This is why you’ll often find them hovering around soft, very ripe or rotting fruit and fermented liquids like wine, beer, and vinegar. 

More specifically, the flies go nuts for the carbon dioxide released during the fermentation process. For such tiny pests, they rely on a pretty ingenious biological function to ensure they’re only going after the “good” forms of carbon dioxide — like the kind from rotting food.

How to get rid of fruit flies in your kitchen

Entomologists and dedicated drosophilists aside, most of us just want to know how to get rid of fruit flies — and keep them from coming back. We asked Brenda Platt, director of the Composting for Community project at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance for her go-to methods for managing and preventing fruit fly infestation.

Address the root of the issue

“Prevention is the best strategy for addressing fruit flies,” says Platt. Step one: Never leave rotting fruit or fruit scraps uncovered and hanging around for long. Use up or get rid of fruit and vegetables, like over-ripe bananas or peaches, that are past their prime before they attract fruit flies. 

When you do have scraps, a standard kitchen trash can isn’t a great option, as flies will head straight for it. An alternative?  Throw them in a Mill. The Mill food recycler heats up food scraps and leftovers to kill pathogens and prevent the fermenting process from getting underway; the charcoal filtration system blocks all those odors that fruit flies find so irresistible.

If you don’t have a Mill, you have a few options. One is to store food scraps in the fridge or freezer until trash — or, if available, curbside compost pickup — day. If you use a countertop pail, keep it covered with a lid or, like Platt does, a shower cap. You can stash your pail under the sink with a cover for even more limited access.

If you compost at home, be sure to empty the pail — and clean it — frequently, especially in the summer months when fruit flies are more likely to crop up. “Home composting is a great strategy for avoiding fruit flies because you don't have to wait for the weekly pick-up day,” Platt says. “Just take the scraps out to your backyard bin [or pile] and cover with a thick layer of browns, [like] leaves or wood chips.”

Use a canister or stick vacuum to suck them up

If you’re past the point of prevention and need to make an immediate dent in the population, Platt recommends the blunt simplicity of a vacuum. Aim the wand or nozzle at the flies, one by one, until you’ve reduced their numbers and can set about eliminating the source.

Make your own traps 

Infestations might feel overwhelming, but killing fruit flies, especially if you’ve addressed the food source, is relatively easy. No need to buy commercial repellants or fruit fry-specific traps: a DIY fruit fly trap will do the job beautifully. Instead of busting out the bleach or other heavy chemicals, simply utilize the same scents that attract the adult flies.  

You can construct homemade traps using common household ingredients, like apple cider vinegar (a sweeter, more appealing option than white vinegar) and dish soap, or a few pieces of the very ripe fruit that started it all. 

A quick search will yield plenty of old tricks: You could fashion a piece of paper into a cone and set it into the neck of an empty bottle of wine, or splash some apple cider vinegar into a jar or dish and cover it with a sheet of plastic wrap poked with a few small holes on top. The key to these methods, Platt says, is that in either case, the flies get in but have trouble escaping through the narrow aperture they used to enter. 

As an alternative to plastic wrap and a rubber band, you can level up the effectiveness by nailing a few small holes in a metal canning lid secured to the top. That way, you won’t need to worry about flies escaping through a too-loose sheet of plastic, or spilling the concoction on your counter. (Adding a few drops of dish soap will break the vinegar’s surface tension, and drown the flies.) 

Whatever kind of trap you end up constructing, you’ll want to place it wherever the fruit flies seem to be most concentrated. Depending on how many flies you’re looking to dispatch, you can leave the trap out for a few days without needing to swap out the liquid inside. If you have an ongoing infestation, you may choose to refresh your trap every week as needed.