Simple House or Fruit Fly Trap

We've seen the simple apple cider vinegar and dish soap traps. If you happen to not have apple cider vinegar handy, try this fun and unpublished trick.

Make your physical trap. I prefer the inverted plastic water bottle as shown. Others prefer the glass and Saran Wrap set up. Use whichever you prefer.

For ingredients, the list is simple and measurements do not matter aside from volume constraints from your choice of traps. Room temperature water, sugar, yeast, a piece of fruit. Yep, we're making a small amount of wine. It is the fermentation that attracts the flies but there should not be any fermentation smell lingering in your kitchen or wherever you place your finished trap.

Use small amounts of each ingredient, a little goes a long way.

Pour the water into the trap, add a little sugar (teaspoon), now drop a small piece of fruit like both halves of a halved grape, a small strawberry, a small chunk of apple. Finally, add up to a packet of regular baking yeast. That's it.

Here's the additional benefit, flies and fruit flies love this concoction and will stay in the immediate area adjacent to the trap. Apparently they also like getting drunk, a lot. Those that manage to escape will be entirely too drunk to fly and will be very lethargic. Ever have one of those really smart and fast house flies that always manages to escape the swatter and taunts you at every opportunity? Not anymore. Get him drunk and swat him while he's sleeping it off! He'll be right by the trap, promise.

***Bonus Tip- Instead of making a homemade trap, recycle a plastic iced coffee cup with plastic dome lid and use that as your trap.

Room temperature water, sugar, yeast, fruit, empty plastic water bottle