I'm being invaded!!

[AnSionnachGlic]

I live in West of Ireland where it does not get too hot, but for the last two weeks my kitchen is being invaded by swarms of fruit flies! They are everywhere. The final straw is this evening, when I left my glass of red wine, unattended, for 5 minutes and when I returned it was crawling with the little buggers...some happily swimming in my lovely Rioja, others scaling my glass! They are all over the worktops, on tables etc., even though I'm cleaning every crumb up , on every surface. Even as I'm typing this, I'm swatting them away from my face! I even am scratching my scalp as am imagining them squatting there too !!!Any suggestions in how to get rid of them?? Don't remember them ever being as bad as this. Help!

We have these too. It I’m Ireland but in a northern camp part of England. My windowsills are full of dead ones and they keep landing in me when I’m trying to read. Very annoying.

You can make your own fruit fly trap by chopping up a few grapes, or other fruit to hand,
putting them in a narrow necked bottle or and then making a paper cone with a hole cut out the bottom. The fruit entices them in, but the funnel won’t them escape. When you’ve caught enough fill the vessel with boiling water to exterminate the little feckers.

https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/home/craft-ideas/a32700598/best-homemade-fly-trap/

Hoover them up.

I’m in Scotland and we have hundreds of them this August. I’ve never had so many. I hate them. I have moved the food caddy outside. All soft fruit (grapes, strawberries, tomatoes) are now stored in the fridge which is really annoying as I hate cold fruit. And I’ve set up cider vinegar traps all over the kitchen. It’s reduced them but they are still about. You have my sympathy.

Put a saucer or cling film over your glass.

I thought I had those too ( east Scotland ) worst it’s ever been this summer . Then a visitor suggested they were actually drain flies (eugh) so I started filled the sinks with bleach and water overnight and kept my henry Hoover in the kitchen and sucked any up that dared appear, and touch wood it’s worked , though if I forget even one night to do the bleach there are a few that appear in the morning ….. also put the fruit in the fridge and left no food sitting out at all .

I have them all over the kitchen and have no idea why. The compost caddy is in the garden and there's no overipe fruit knocking around. My partner has been sucking them up the hoover but it does seem a bit cruel.

I’ve got apple cider vinegar traps all over the kitchen but will move the food caddy outside tonight and bleach the drain before I go to bed. I hate them!

I find that putting out a small glass or empty jar with apple cider vinegar and a squeeze of washing up liquid manages to “catch” many of them. There might still be a few, and it does take patience and I usually make a new one when it gets a bit full of bug corpses! 🤣 I have one going now and am rather smug about the number of the blighters that I’ve “caught”!

Are they fruit flies or are they fungus gnats? If you have houseplants they can sometimes get fungus gnats and they get everywhere!

Thanks for all the recommendations. I've filled a glass with cider vinegar and washing up liquid and it is drawing a lot of attention!! Also have bleach down the sink. Still swatting them but will see if the situation improves. Can't remember ever having so many...feels like an infestation 😱

Thank you so much for this. I thought these can’t be fruit flies. Always take off when I go
to the sink, turn on the tap.

Will do and get rid of the critters!

I was just thinking that’s a nice humane way of catching them for release outside rather than drowning them in cider vinegar and then… oh… 😂