Easy DIY Natural Fruit Fly Repellent Ideas
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Get those annoying fruit flies out of your kitchen without any heavy engineering! These simple natural fruit fly repellent methods use stuff you already have in your kitchen and require no cutting, taping, or other head scratching DIY tinkering.
Natural Fruit Fly Repellent
I hate having to squeeze my brains to find fruit fly repellent ideas and chasing after those annoying bugs like all the time! Being able to have fresh fruit in the house is one of the things I love most about Spring and Summer. It’s so nice to keep fruit in plain sight as we all tend to eat healthier this way; they’re so tempting, especially those bright red apples!
But it all comes with a downside: those nasty fruit flies! No matter how careful I am in using up or removing ripe fruit immediately, these little buggers are always there. And they’re everywhere, even when there’s no rotten fruit in sight. I honestly thought fruit flies love rotten fruit but apparently, fresh fruit is also a delicacy! Or maybe they just like to hang around, they’ve come to consider us family or buddies so they simply make themselves comfortable in our house. After all, that’s what good friends do, right? lol
Need more repellent ideas?
I hate to break their tiny hearts but the feeling is not mutual, I don’t enjoy their friendship! So I had to do something to get rid of them hence the diy fly repellent. It may take a consistent effort, on a daily basis, but these natural fly control ideas below are natural and safe for the house and your family.
Fruit Fly Repellent
Fruit fly repellent #1 – Natural fruit fly spray
This fruit fly repellent uses stuff that’s safe for your family and the environment and is good not only on fruit flies but house flies, ants, spiders and most unwanted crawlers.
Ingredients:
- 2 1/4 cup white vinegar
- 2 tbsp dish washing soap
- 1 tbsp peppermint essential oil
- 1 tbsp lemon oil
Directions:
- Mix all ingredients in a spray bottle
- Shake well
- Use to spray directly on fruit flies
- You may need to use the spray several times a day, on a daily basis
Or if you hate spending so much time spraying the life out of you on those nasty little flies, you can use another natural fruit fly control method. Make a simple fruit fly trap that you can strategically place around the house and just forget about afterwards (well…not indefinitely, really)
Fruit fly repellent #2 – Fruit fly trap
Ingredients:
- White Vinegar
- Dish soap
- Mason jar
- Plastic wrap
- Twine
Directions:
- Pour just enough white vinegar to cover the bottom of the jar (I found cider vinegar is not strong enough for my fruit flies).
- Add a drop of dish soap (it will break the surface tension of the vinegar so the fruit flies can’t just sit atop the liquid).
- Cover the jar with plastic wrap and poke a few holes in the top.
- Secure with a string of twine
- The flies will get in easily, drawn by the smell of vinegar but won’t be able to find their way out
- Place jars around the house where fruit flies tend to gather. Occasionally check the jars, remove content and place fresh vinegar.
- You may use left over wine and the bottle
- You can use ripe fruit instead of vinegar
Fruit fly repellent #3 – Keep your drains clean
Also another natural fruit fly control method is keeping the drains clean as that’s another place where fruit flies tend to breed. Check out this easy method for cleaning the pipes and the drain the natural, healthy way.
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I live in the middle of farm country. Every tip and hack has been tried in my home. Honestly, the best thing I’ve found is the sticky fly strips above kitchen double sink. I’ll take changing the strips over spending time and money trying to find something that works. Just my thing.
These are not repellents. These are fruit fly traps. Is there something that actually repels fruit flies (ie keeps them away) rather than something that attracts and traps them?
Lavender plants & lemongrass essential oils work well for us, Miguel!
Great timing! I was wondering where those fruit flies were coming from… as rarely have fruits out on the counter!
Will give that a try and especially the drain pipes from the dual sink… that could be the reason!
Thank you for a simple recipe remedy and tips!
Hi Jan! Thanks for stopping by! I’m happy I could help hope you’ll get rid of those nasty flies soon!
I tried cider vinegar, red wine, dish detergent, pest strips, you name it and nothing worked for me. Yes, I got rid of a few fruit flies but there were a lot more to take their place. I finally found something that worked. Peppermint essential oil! I made a spray from water and peppermint essential oil – sprayed everywhere the flies normally gathered and I also soaked cotton balls in the essential oil and put them in all my cabinets. I only saw maybe 5 fruit flies all last summer. As an added bonus, it got rid of the house flies I’m plagued with at a certain time each year as well.
That’s great, Gretchen! So happy you found a solution for your problem! Those were probably not fruit flies though, but drain flies. These are harder to get rid of and the vinegar won’t work for them, they’re not attracted to vinegar or wine. Thanks for sharing your method with us!
I find that cider vinegar works wonderfully for trapping fruit flies – they can’t resist it, and gladly go to their ends.
Hi Carol. Thanks for stopping by and sharing this with us :)