How to make a Environmental Fruit Fly Trap

I don't like to use any kind of household aerosol sprays indoors if I can help it but every summer and mid winter I seem to get a bloom of fruit flies in my house.


Some of these fruit flies are pretty aggressive. I wonder if they're from the Amazon or somewhere very tropical where everything grows bigger and more dangerous, like an amazon spider that grows as big as a plate? You might think they're tiny but they have big glowing red eyes. And for the trivia buffs out there (I know this because my group won $100.00 because we knew this answer) the fruit fly sperm has the longest tail compared to it's size--even longer than the tail-compared-to-size of a blue whale!

It probably doesn't help that being a green person I have a compost container in the kitchen for my fruit and veggie scraps, and then it probably adds to it that I don't empty the container as frequently as I should. Also because it's winter and we've had heaps of snow, the thought of trudging through deep snow to the back of the garage with a big stinky pail is very unappealing. Yes, I would prefer the stink than to lug the pail through the snow.

Here's my green environmental fruit fly trap instructions:

1. Have a glass of wine (red is preferred). Now guard your drink because the fruit flies might want to fight you for it and depending on how hungry they are they might even try to dive bomb between your fingers when you cover your glass with your hand.


2. Finish the bottle of wine--it is kind and polite to share, so you may want to offer a glass to someone other than "me, myself and I". Be sure to leave a few drops (about 1 or 2 teaspoons) in the bottom of the bottle--you must resist the urge to drink every drop!


3. Add 1/4 inch of water to the wine bottle.


4. Set the bottle on the counter and leave it overnight.... or for a couple days. The fruit flies will hone on the wine bottle like a magnetic compass and will go down inside and drown in the fruity water. (At least they'll die as happy drunks!)


5. Periodically you can return to the bottle, put your thumb over the opening and shake hard. Why? Because the shaking helps to quickly drown any that are climbing on the sides or still swimming around.


6. After a couple days, pour out the water into your garden or compost heap outside. And voila! No more fruit flies in the house.

I should mention that these instructions work equally well with a cup or glass with a piece of fruit or tomato in it, but wine is much more fun to drink and seems to attract this insect like, well, like flies.

Oh, and don't forget to recycle that wine bottle too. Cheers!!!