Around this time of year, many households up and down the country will be battling with fruit flies in their kitchens.
Flies are a real nuisance and make your kitchen feel unsanitary. And, according to a pest control expert, you likely brought them into your home yourself.
An expert at JP McHale Pest Management explained in a TikTok video: “Fruit flies don’t just come out of nowhere. If you have fruit flies in your home, chances are you brought them in with you.
“In my experience, the worst foods for fruit flies are bananas and onions. But you can bring them in on potatoes, or anything else.”
Fruit flies seem to appear out of nowhere because they breed and grow rapidly. A female can lay 500 eggs, and those eggs become maggots within 30 hours. By the end of the week, those maggots will have become adult fruit flies.
Thankfully, if you store your onions and bananas – as well as other fruit and veg – the proper way, you can get rid of fruit flies for good!
The expert at JP McHale Pest Management continued on TikTok: “The best way to prevent getting fruit flies is to keep your food in airtight containers!”
It should be noted that, for bananas specifically, storing them in airtight containers will speed up the ripening process. JP McHale Pest Management added in the comments that the fridge is another option for bananas if you have a bad fruit fly problem. And it’s always recommended that you wash your fruit when you first bring it into your home.
And if changing how you store your fruit and veg doesn’t get rid of all the flies, there’s one common ingredient you can use to banish them for good.
Many people swear by using products such as apple cider vinegar to trap and drown the flies, but a cleaning enthusiast on Reddit recently claimed soy sauce works better.
They said: “The best thing I’ve ever used is soy sauce. They love fermented stuff. I put soy sauce in a shallow dish, cover it with [cling film], and poke pencil-sized holes [in the film]. Works a treat.”
