This Fruit Fly Trap Catches 25X More Than Your Bowl of Vinegar Does

If you're dealing with a kitchen full of fruit flies and want to know exactly which DIY trap works best—welcome. This is where I shine. I tested four of the most common (and weirdest) homemade fruit fly traps, counted every single bug corpse and crowned a winner.

Best Fruit Fly Trap (I Counted Corpses)

Tuesday night is garbage night round these parts. I have a regular garbage bin, a compost pile, a compost bin, a recycling box for metals and a recycling box for papers.

When I was a kid getting rid of your garbage just involved rolling down the car window.

That means I have compostable things like fruit and vegetables under my sink for a week. When I pull the compost bin from under my sink, a planet of fruit flies has been known to rise up out of it. They then disperse with military precision around my kitchen.  

Like you, I have stretched cling film over a bowl of vinegar and punched holes in it with a fork. CAUSE THAT'S WHAT YOU DO WHEN YOU HAVE FRUIT FLIES.

I thought so too until I set a glass of milk on the counter during fruit fly season.

 In the time it took to pour the milk and walk to the other end of the kitchen there was a fruit fly in it.

And so it began.

The Methods I Tested

🪰 Vinegar in a bowl

The go-to, vinegar in a bowl with plastic film and fork holes was already on the counter.

🪰 Milk

I figured they must love milk so I set an open glass of milk on the counter.

🪰 Vinegar Bottle

Then I remembered that whenever I have fruit flies in the summer they always get into my vinegar bottle so I set that on the counter too.

🪰 Best DIY Fly Trap

THEN I remembered about my DIY bottle fly trap & made a miniature version of it with vinegar as a bait in the bottom instead of rotting shrimp.

The Results (Ranked Worst to Best)

I left the traps out for 3 days, which is how long it took to eliminate the fruit flies.

I then emptied the contents of each trap into a fine sieve, catching all the dead fruit flies, dried them on a piece of paper and started counting.

And here are the shocking results in order from least to most effective.

Yes.  I know.  Close your mouth, you'll get fruit flies in it.  I had the very same reaction when I saw how many flies this method caught. Once I counted them I WAS GIDDY AND NAUSEOUS.

Seriously.

How to Make a Fruit Fly Trap that Works

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Using a paper cone and mason jar worked THAT much better than all other DIY fruit fly trap methods. I sifted, dried and counted them.

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Fruit Fly Trap Video

This method for catching fruit flies blew the other methods out of the water and I suspect it would do the same to any store bought fruit fly traps.

Bonus Trap: For Bottle Flies (Not for the Weak)

If you aren't sure how to do it or what it looks like here's my full tutorial on how to make a similar trap for bottle flies.

The bait is more sickening: raw, rotting shrimp.

Any kind of vinegar makes a good bait for fruit flies and as anyone who drinks knows ... so does wine.

Had you told 16 year old Karen that she would make a pretty good living one day from drying and counting fruit flies she would have responded with a resounding "Yeah that sounds about right".