Possibly fruit flies indoors - luring & trapping them?

I've got these little insects / bugs / gnats.....whatever you want to call them....buzzing around our kitchen and in the office room at home. I initially thought they were small mosquitoes, but after having a really close look at them, and getting to know them almost on a first- name-basis, they are definitely not mosquitoes. (As an aside, I definitely do get mosquitoes inside from time to time, and my hatred for them drives me to the wall, but those airborne vampires are a different matter). These little pests love my laptop screen too. I think they might by fruit flies - possibly. Anyway, what is the best attractant for fruit flies, if that's what these little pests are? I've heard of apple cider vinegar. Well....I don't have any of that at home, but I can guarantee you I do have alcoholic cider at home (love it!). Obviously fruit flies like fruit, but what is the #1 best attractant for them? I wanna seem them literally fighting each other over whatever drowning bait I am going to use. Thanks.

shaz likd wrote:
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Fruit flies on your monitor? May be false chinch bugs. Why not grab one up and send it to a local expert. Also w/o your location, nobody can tell what this may be. I mean, for all I know, you're in Arabia.

On Fri, 31 Aug 2007 18:02:42 -0600, Paul Cassel
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That's not a "program error", that's a booger! :)
-- Oren
"I don't have anything against work. I just figure, why deprive somebody who really loves it."

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The best attractant for fruit flies is what brought them there in the first place: rotten fruit somewhere. Check around the computer and associated waste paper baskets.

Put some vinegar or wine in custard cups or those little clear cups that you get stuff like tartar sauce in at fast food places, and add 3 or 4 drops of liquid dish soap. It works GREAT! The little buggers climb in and the soap grabs 'em!
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you can buy sticky paper for catching them;IOW,"flypaper".
Or if you want to get fancy,a fluorescent-lighted bug zapper.

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Get rid of whatever they are eating, and use a vacum cleaner to suck the clouds of them out of the air, or wherever they gather. (They love sunny windowsills.) Due to short reproductive cycles, it will take doing this every day for 3-4 days. Make sure the vac has some dust in it to suffocate them, or else they will just fly back out. A real common problem with bannanas and warm weather, especially if the bannanas were not properly sanitized in transit.
aem sends...

aemeijers wrote in message ...
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Some houseplants attract them as well.
Cheri

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Some food for thought that I heard somewhere:
Those bug zappers, ain't they neat!
Blast the critters into tiny particles!
(That hang in the air.)
Really super for a picnic! NOT.
David

Make a paper funnel (conical shape) and place it in a jar, leaving at least half the space in the bottom. Put some cider vinegar in the bottom, abaout 1/2" is plenty. Flies will get in, but not be able to get out.

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This is surprisingly effective. Flies and other bugs cannot "take off" straight up. They cannot escape once they enter. There are instructions all over the internet for making a great fly trap from a plastic soda bottle.
http://www.thelaziestman.com/flytrap.htm
I recommend a clear bottle rather than the green one this guy used.

On Sat, 29 Sep 2007 20:12:26 +0000, David Combs wrote:
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Did you know that USDA allows for up to 3 insects per pound of cereal?

Meat Plow wrote:
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Insects in cereal are measured by weight, not volume. Some settling of insects may occur during handling.
PB

wrote:
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I'm guessing you have house plants. Put a 1/4" of sand in the pots. One week, no more pests.
--Andy Asberry-- ------Texas-----

On Fri, 31 Aug 2007 16:46:24 -0700, shaz likd wrote:
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Drain flies possibly. They live in the drain of your sink.

shaz likd wrote:
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Fruit flies will be reddish color, though there is a dark colored gnat that will also find it's way to rotting potatoes/onions. Wine or malt/cider vinegars will attract fruit flies. You may even set several small dishes of wine around the house to help determine where the population is coming from.
The most common small gnat I get calls on are fungus gnats from a plant you are either watering too much or that you have to keep wet for it to grow. The larvae are down in the soil and by using a bright flashlight inspecting the potted plants should tell you which one is infested, if any. Also if you are in a part of the country that is getting all the rain they may be just coming in from outside/under the house. I'm in Texas and we had over six weeks of continuous rain this year and from about halfway through the wet spell till two weeks after the rain stop my most common call was for small dark gnats all over the house, mainly homes with pier/beam foundations that was just wet from all the rain for weeks. Once the dry season came the gnats were gone.
Another possibility is drain flies (about a third the size of a house fly or once again fungus gnats coming from a drain. It could be a drain that isn't used much and the water has evaporated from the p trap allowing insects in from the sewer lines or a broken sewer line itself. Place a clear bowl over the various drains and if any are trapped you know they are coming from that drain. Also they can get in the muck that builds up in an old food disposal.
Lar

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I keep a 'slop bucket' in the kitchen for waste and it attracts fruit flies if I don't empty it daily. I just put in a small piece of yellow plastic vapor insecticide and cover loosely. The loose cover allows the flies in and keeps enough of the vapors in to kill them.
Free men own guns - www(dot)geocities(dot)com/CapitolHill/5357/

shaz likd wrote:
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Are you certain they're not crotch flies? hehe
Fruit flies are typically brought into a home as eggs on produce. If you toss your produce parings into a waste basket or uncoverd trash can that's not disposed of often fruit flies will proliferate. On the plus side once hatched fruit flies live only 24 hours, so if you make an effort to have reasonably clean habits regarding produce then you wouldn't have fruit flies. Produce should be washed as soon as it's brought home and its original packaging disposed of outdoors. If you have fruit flies around your office it's a sure bet you're eating produce at your pc and leaving the waste about... even wiping your dribbles and tossing the tissue in the wastebasket will make a cozy environment for fruit flies. Also regularly wipe all surfaces where produce has been set (syrups, preserves, and confections as well), fruit flies are an excellent indicator of slovenly housekeeping habits.
http://www.ca.uky.edu/entomology/entfacts/ef621.asp

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I have to disagree with your last statement. Here in Michigan we still buy a lot of our produce fresh from farmers. I'd like to think that my house is kept very clean, but we still get fruit flies a few times each summer because the produce isn't being processed and packaged for a supermarket. There is virtually no way to quarantine the produce because if you put it in the garage or outside you will only attract MORE fruit flies. We wash our produce and immediately throw away the bags or cartons that it comes in, but invariably some of the little buggers (or their eggs) will be inside sweet corn shucks or in bunches of grapes. They are a nuisance, but it's not like they sting or anything. We just put out a few custard cups full of vinegar with a little bit of dish soap in it, and they are gone in a day or so. I honestly don't think that having fruit flies occasionally should be lumped into the same category as having roaches, mice, moths, etc., which ARE indicators of poor housekeeping.

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Everyone has some *occasional* fruit flies... I didn't lump in with anything, you're the one lumping in. If you're putting out fruit fly traps, reading in things that aren't there, and taking personal offence then perhaps your fruit flies are more problematic than occasional. I suggest you read the info at the link I posted.