Fruit Fly Traps

We have lots of commercial restaurant customers and the average consumer would automatically think that cockroaches would be a restaurant's biggest problem. Not true! Flying high at the top of the list are small flies. Within this general category are fruit flies, that ever-present pest that can ruin an otherwise enjoyable evening out that your favorite restaurant.

One thing fruit flies and other small flies indicate is that something is amiss in the kitchen or bar area. These small flies can be brought in on fresh produce and via door drafts and they can establish breeding sites overnight. Your

Vector fly trap

home or business can develop a healthy population over a two day period and it is all because of some overlooked bit of food, grease buildup or accumulation of deposing materials hiding in cracks and crevices along baseboards or door thresholds.

Sanitation is the key to success and it takes time and effort to thoroughly detect, inspect and correct. One of the keys to overcoming a fruit fly or other small fly infestation is determining from where the infestation is originating. Observing one or two of the flies is just the tip of the iceberg. So, to help in your efforts I am going to suggest some products we use on our job sites.

The Vector Fruit Fly trap is a little round orange container that has a food attractant. The orange color is supposed to be especially attractive to the fruit flies and the smell of the food attractant coming from the holes on top of the device combine to entice the flies to enter the trap. Once inside they drown.

Home remedies for fruit flies are also effective. You can easily make your own fly trap by putting some red wine or vinegar into a shallow dish. Cover the dish with plastic wrap and poke a few small holes through the wrap with the point of a pencil. You will surely capture fruit flies.

Take a piece of lightweight cardboard paper and make a funnel. Put a piece of fruit in a jar and thin layer of water in the bottom of the jar. Install the funnel so that it is near the bottom of the jay, but not touching the fruit or liquid. The flies will go into the funnel and become trapped inside the jar.

funnel trap

Yellow scented glue boards are also very popular. This time the manufacturer claims that yellow is the color of choice for the flies. There are also little images of other fruit flies that are supposedly fly decoys.

All of these fly trap products are available on the web, but making your own traps is much quicker and certainly less expensive. What ever works as long as you are determining where the greatest number of flies are being found. Once you see that you are catching the most flies you are close to discovering their breeding location.

I had a commercial restaurant account with a small fly problem. We searched and searched for the breeding location. We checked floor drains and looked for sticky spots on legs of tables and cooking units. We checked supply lines and looked for broken floor tiles. Finally, as our search focused on the locations where we were seeing the highest density of flies, we accidentally knocked into a bottle cap collector on the side of a cooler. This is the little device used by bartenders to open beer bottles. The bottle caps drop into a collection pocket. Fruit flies galore flew out of the little container and we had discovered our breeding source. We simple emptied the container and washed it with hot, soapy water and the infestation was eliminated.

I wish all our fruit fly problems could be resolved so readily, but sometimes there are multiple breeding spots. Use your fruit fly traps to help you zero in on breeding locations. It does little good to chase individual fruit flies around your house or business. Do a thorough inspection and be honest with yourself. Is your kitchen really clean? Can you run your hands along walls, ranges, hood filters and floors with total confidence that proper and effective cleaning is being done? If you really want to be rid of these small flies you need to put in the work. A pest control company cannot resolve this fly issue without your help.