We have been attacked by an abundance of fruit flies lately in my kitchen. AHH! Don’t you love those little flying insects that seem to find every bit of food in your kitchen and around your trash can? Here is our simple, frugal, and effective solution!
Fruit Fly Trap
1 quart jar
1 piece of paper, rolled up into a funnel
tape
apple cider vinegar
small slice of banana
Fill a quart jar with a 1/2 inch of apple cider vinegar and a small piece of banana. Roll up your paper into a funnel shape (larger at the top) and tape it in place. Place the funnel into your jar and make sure all the edges are secured shut with tape. You may have to adjust the size of your funnel to make sure it fits nicely into your jar. Place the jar where the fruit flies are flying around and let it go to work. You will be amazed at how well this trap works. The fruit flies will smell the fruit and climb inside, but for some odd reason they don’t fly back up the funnel to get out. When you have caught a good supply, place the entire jar in the freezer. After a short time that flies with die and you can remove the jar from the freezer and use it again without even removing the old contents. Use repeatedly until your fruit flies are eliminated.
As you can see in my picture, this easy trap is amazingly effective!
Ant Trap
We are often plagued with ants in the Spring time as well around here. We have various sorts of carpenter and sugar ants. This little concoction does the trick! Last year we had huge carpenter ants all around our kitchen. Many were coming out of our electrical saukets in our kitchen. We were blown away by how quickly they were eradicated with this recipe.
1 tsp. borax (borax is an natural laundry boosting powder available in the laundry section of the store, normally on the top shelf)
2 cups hot water
6 Tbsp sugar
folded paper towel
small shallow cup (like a creme burlee dish)
Disolve borax in hot water. Stir in sugar. Dip the folded paper towel, using tongs, in the solution till completely saturated with solution. Cram the paper towel in the dish. Place in location where you have seen the ants. This solution will be eaten by the ants and taken back to the nest to share with the other ants and thus eradicate the entire nest. Keep away from children by placing on a countertop or cupboard, if possible.
It’s Frugal Fridays!
We used a very similar trap for hornets while we were touring New Zealand by camper van. You cut the top of a plastic pop bottle- the cut should be horizontal and be made just where the rounded shoulders of the bottle meet the straight sides of the cylindrical body of the bottle. Flip the top part that you have removed over an put it back in place only with the bottle spout facing down into the body of the bottle. Fill it with anything sweet and liquid (a bit of leftover pop works fine) and leave it on the ground. The hornets get in but can’t get back out and eventually drown in the liquid. Dish soap might help speed the process, but wasn’t required. It cleared our camp site within two hours.
What a timley find! (Thank you, StumbleUpon!) I have a major ant problem this year, and it’s driving me crazy. Mostly they invade in the spring, but this year I’m finding larger black ones (possibly carpenters) that are crawling all over my kitchen. My ant-loving sons won’t let me kill them outright, so this will be a sneakier method of getting rid of them. Thanks!
Jen, you are a trooper. That is very considerate of you and speaks highly of your character. Your boys will be good people I expect.
Kudos.
Another great option for ants is to take cinnamon and mix it with water- it should be a paste like consistency. You can mold this into places that ants are coming in- door jams, windows etc. Obviously- this won’t work in electrical sockets.
Ants hate the smell of cinnamon and will stop coming around.
I have used this the past four summers and it works great. Plus, I have never worried about my son or pets ingesting it!
I love these tips, thanks for sharing.
If you have an empty eyedrops bottle that is clean and dry, put boric acid powder in it and then just gently spritz the boric acid around the baseboards and doorways to get rid of the sugar ants and “slab” ants. It may also work with carpenter ants. Doesn’t touch the spiders, but when their food source is gone, the spider population is reduced too.
To kill them faster, mix some boric acid with water and spritz them. I don’t have a recipe, I just dump a teaspoon or two into a travel sized spritz bottle and add water. Shake and let sit until it’s all dissolved (not long before that happens), then spritz them. If you spritz linoleum, or even sprinkle the powder on linoleum, you might want to wash the floors after a bit because the dried boric acid can be VERY slippery. Even to bare feet.
I put together the fruit fly trap yesterday and am amazed at the number flies caught!! Thank you!
I’ve come across this idea for a fruit fly trap before, and it works very well. I put a drop of dish soap in the vinegar in order to break the surface tension. This way, the flies drown when they try to land on the vinegar. Of course, freezing will kill them all, but maybe you’ll drown a few that were smart enough to find their way back out!
Note that the carpenter ants are very destructive wood pests. like termites. If there are a few visible few carpenter ants on your kitchen counter, there are probably thousands in the walls eating the wood in your house.
The ant trap will only remove the visual trace of these ants, and will have little effect on their actual population.
Fruitflies are annoying. Sugar and Argentine ants are annoying. Carpenter ants and termites cause real damage.
The trap is for flies, the goop is for ants. If they carry the food back, it can break the life cycle.
I read your post 2 days ago, and thought, “what a great tip to use whenever i have an ant problem”. Then this morning I awoke to a kitchen full of fruit flies, which I’ve never seen in our house before!!! I think you might have jinxed me!!! Just kidding – thanks for the tip!
anybody have a natural earwig trap… my house seems to be a place they enjoy being this year. yuk
I’m putting this together right now. The fruit flies are multiplying in my compost bin and infecting the tomatoes!
I’ve tried homemade ant traps with no success. I’ll have to try yours. We have free roaming fire ants in the house. I’m tired of working around them! At least they do a lot of clean up for me!!
Thanks for the great post (thanks to Stumble!)!
Thank you so much for your fruit fly trap. I must add, in desperation, I used Red Wine Vinegar and it was terribly effective. I keep a pristine house-hold and these nasty pests have been plaguing my kitchen and making a mockery of my hard work for ages. I set up my Red Wine Vinegar trap and returned from work to find my kitchen, and house, fly free. Thank you and thanks again. I will recommend this website to all of my friends. I have been searching for an effective, animal safe, remedy for this problem and it has been found. Thanks and thanks again.
Any recommendations for slugs (other than beer in a can-it’s been too rainy)
A chicken or even better, an egg-laying duck will decimate those slugs and snails!
The ant trap worked SO WELL! Thank you for another fabulous natural solution!
Thank you for the excellent apple cider vinegar -in a jar -with tape, remedy. I had dozens of flies all over the house. The procedure was quick efficient and economical. It didn’t cost me anything. I had most of those ingredients in my house. However, I did not have a bananna. So I used a table spoon sized piece of watermelon and a teaspoon of natural sugar.
I saw fruit flies gather in the jar in minutes. I also poured bleach down all of the drains in my house. I see almost no fruit flies now.
I just put out the fruit fly trap… we have a huge problem with them! hopefully this will work. At wits end and running out of flying insect killers to try! Would anyone know what brings them?
Hi, I read about your invention for eliminating fruit flies a few weeks ago. I very much like the idea of it especially because it’s chemical-free. Gladly I haven’t got any problems with those. Yet, at the moment our apartment is run over by bread beatles / drugstore beatles (Stegobium paniceum would be the Latin name). Do yo happen to have any experiences with these little animals and your fruit fly trap? Do you know whether they will go for it?
I would be very relived to find a “yes-answer” from you or any other invention that helps me get rid of these little beasts.
Thanks a lot for any kind of chemical-free hint.
Ines
I’m sorry but I personally don’t have any ideas for the beatle problem. Did you search google?
Do you mean mealworms? The little beetles that love to live in your flours and grains? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flour_beetle My first recommendation is to never buy Jiffy mixes (at least here in the US). Info passed along to me by my mom, but of course, too late.
Getting rid of mealworms is a long and tedious process, and once you do it, you’ll likely take measures to never get them back again. First, you should rid your cupboards of all infected items. Sadly, in my cupboards, this included sealed bottles of spices like ginger (well ok, I hate ginger, so no problem). Searching the internet will get you results of people saying you can freeze your flours and grains and that will kill the eggs. But really? Yuck. Throw it out and start over.
I removed every bit of every food item from my cupboards and put it on my kitchen table, throwing out the obviously infected items. Then I wiped down all my cupboards with bleach. Left everything out for at least a week (weird to see the beetles crawling out). Wiped down the cupboards again and threw out more food. After that I put it all back, making sure that every little bit of every grain food was sealed up tightly (think resealable plastic bags, not just the packaging from the store). I believe I had to repeat this whole process one more time, and within six months I was free of the little pests. I permanently keep my sugars, flours and all other packaged baking goods in a Rubbermaid container away from pests.
And I no longer buy Jiffy products. Sorry Jiffy, stop packing your products with mealworm eggs.
I buy Jiffy products all the time and have never had a problem. Pizza crust mix, corn muffins, cakes, etc. I have had issues with some spices and spaghetti products, which were all in sealed plastic bottles and bags, so I think any product can get infestations. I don’t think brand matters.
If you’re using them right away, it’s likely the eggs don’t have an opportunity to hatch.
Oh….and they come in sealed packages, but they’re tainted before packaging.
I just opened a box of Jiffy Corn Muffin mix today to feed (kill)ants in my yard. To my disgust, the box was full of bugs! I had to clean out my pantry, toss everything that was open (cereal, oatmeal, flour, etc.) Then I vacuumed, and took Fantastik with Orange oil and sprayed and wiped.
I might buy Jiffy Corn Muffin Mix to kill ants, but not to make muffins! It is an excellent and safe way to kill ants. The flour, corn meal and baking soda in the mix makes the ants unable to digest, and they die. They carry it down into the nest, so you get to the Queen.
Any mixes with flour, corn meal, etc. will now go into the freezer until using!
Thanks for your prompt reply. Yes, I did search google, but on the first go only found chemical solutions, i.e. these kind of sticky tapes covered with beatle pheromones to lure them onto the tape to stick there and starve. Well, I’ll give it a second go and search thoroughly. Perhaps if I am successful I can post something here for you or others to try out in case of emergency
At least I found the source / hiding place of the little things, they must have been nesting in a cardboard box of breadcrumps since we moved into the apartment last fall.
I would have gone crazy without this! I came home to so many fruit flies and right before family was coming to visit. Within two days this frugal and simple solution had taken care of the problem. Thank you!
Hi! I just wanted you to know that I blogged about your fruit fly trap!
http://www.granolamom4god.com/2009/08/catching-fruit-flies-organically.html
I just wanted to add another solution for the ants. Cornmeal. All you have to do is scatter it about & let them do all the work. I even put some outside my backdoor & it worked there as well. I like this idea because I don’t have to worry about the children getting into it. I don’t know what kind of ants I have/had so I hope it works for whoever gives it a try. Thanks for the tip with the fruitflies, I have a problem with them as well.
April
Genius, we’re doing it right now
Thanks!
I used these back when you first posted it and it did the trick. Then last week it seemed like ants were taking over our home. I made new ant cups on Sunday and I haven’t seen an ant since Monday night! Thanks for the idea!
Wouldn’t adding some dish soap to the cider kill them
which would eliminate the need to freeze? My best success
so far has been to place a large platter (with raised edges)
on the cupboard and pour the cider and soap in it. I get
dozens per day.
This does work amazingly well! With in seconds of making my trap, there were fruit flies climbing down to their doom! Thanks for the tip!
Any suggestions for fleas? Other than a light in soapy water (only halfway works).
I have had fleas several times in my home, and got rid of them completely without an extermitator. It was easy: Srinkle flea powder on your carpets/floors and vacuum. Empty the bag immediately (or if bagless vacuum, dump it into an outside garbage).
Keep repeating the process, and eventually they will disappear. Steam cleaning the carpet can help too, but I found the vacuuming to be the most effective method.
As for the flour bugs, when you first bring home the products (flour, corn meal, oatmeal, baking mix, etc..) put them in the freezer for 24 hours. This will make any eggs that the product might have sterile. Have been doing this for years. Have not had this problem since I started doing this.