A few months ago, I bought a container of cherry tomatoes that was — unbeknownst to me, at the time — teeming with fruit flies. My kitchen has been a battleground ever since.
We’ve all had to fight infestations in our homes at one time or another; those tiny ants that keep finding our pantries, or those houseflies that repeatedly fling themselves into our windows over and over again, like little drunken hooligans. Typically, these unwelcome guests are a temporary annoyance, but there comes a certain point when most homeowners have to say “enough is enough. This means war.”
Because this is such a common experience there are an overwhelming amount of options for pest control that we can employ in our homes. They range from the basic, DIY methods to “nuclear options” like dangerous pesticides, but what homeowners want is just something that works.
Here are some tried-and-true methods we’ve come to rely on.
Identify The Culprits
As Sun Tzu taught us in The Art of War: Know Thine Enemy. You can’t wage a battle against an insect invasion if you aren’t sure who you’re fighting against.
Most of us can readily tell the difference between basic insects, but those itty-bitty buggers (that are easily mistaken for eye floaters) can be harder to identify.
Fruit flies are tiny brown insects with creepy red eyes (if you’re willing to look that close.) They’re attracted to garbage, fruits, and vegetables, which is why they’re usually found in the kitchen.
Drain flies, also known as moth flies, sewer flies, or filter flies, are usually gray or taupe colored, and have smaller, rounded wings compared to fruit flies. They tend to infest kitchens, bathrooms, and other places with standing water, which provide the moisture-filled environment they need.
Fungus gnats are every houseplant owner’s nightmare, infesting soil, potting mix, and other container media. Their larvae primarily feed on fungi and organic matter in the soil, but it’s the adults that emerge in tiny swarms and drive people crazy.
House flies are annoying little buzzers that everyone can easily identify, with their big fat eyes and annoying habits. Sometimes they gain entry to our homes via holes in screens, or by family members who aren’t diligent about closing doors. But these disease-carriers can lay hundreds of eggs during their 10-25 day lifespan, so if you see one in your house, you’ll want to act fast.
Pantry moths lay their eggs on stored food and grains, and then their larvae chew through plastic bags and thin cardboard, infesting cereals, grains, beans, nuts, flour, dried fruit, animal food, spices, chocolate — the list is almost endless. Once you see one in your house, you know you’re in for a long, drawn-out war of attrition.
Prevention Is Key
The best way to keep your house bug-free is to eliminate what attracts them in the first place. Fruit- and house flies are drawn to ripe, rotting, or decayed produce, fermented goods (such as beer, wine, and liquors), and trash cans or garbage disposals that might harbor those smells. Be vigilant about washing your produce as soon as you get it home, store fruits and vegetables in the fridge whenever possible, and be sure to toss overripe produce as soon as possible.
Preventing fungus gnats and drain fly infestations has everything to do with managing (and eliminating) stagnant water. Fungus gnats love houseplants that have soggy, persistently wet soil. Drain flies take up residence in clogged or slow-draining pipes, unused toilets, leaking pipers, and refrigerator drains. Even a vase of flowers left a little too long can provide the perfect breeding ground for these buggers.
And as for ants and pantry moths, well, they’re usually entering our homes for food. It’s a good idea to clean those areas that are often overlooked, like trash cans, cabinets under the sink, and make sure nothing’s gone bad in the pantry.
Eliminating the Enemy
Once you’ve properly identified your foe, and (hopefully) eliminated what drew them into your home in the first place, it’s time to eradicate the pests.
DIY Methods
Apple Cider Vinegar and Plastic Wrap Trap
Sometimes the remedies passed down through generations are the simplest and most effective. Traps using apple cider vinegar are universally recommended by experts across the board for luring and trapping any insect that is drawn to the smell of fermentation, but particularly fruit flies.
This trap has a few variations, so you might need to experiment to find which one works best for you. Essentially, you are placing the bait — apple cider vinegar — into a receptacle that will draw flies in but make it difficult for them to exit.
The most basic version includes pouring a little apple cider vinegar into a glass, covering the opening with plastic wrap, and securing it with a rubber band. Then poke a few small holes into the wrap for the fruit flies to enter. Alternatively, you could roll some paper into a cone and stick the narrow end into a jar with some vinegar and overripe fruit at the bottom. If you find that the flies are able to get out too easily, some people prefer swapping the plastic wrap for a few drops of Dawn dish soap, leaving the cider uncovered. The dish soap cuts the surface tension of the vinegar, so the flies will sink and drown. (Take that!)
Sticky Methods
Sometimes the DIY methods don’t quite cut it, or you’re dealing with more than one flying pest. The STEM Flying Insects Light Trap is something that looks too simple to really work, but it (and other traps just like it) come highly recommended by Good Housekeeping and The Spruce. (We have one in our house, and seeing those tiny little insect bodies plastered on the sticky surface is immensely satisfying.) These traps use UV light to attract and trap house flies, mosquitoes, gnats, and fruit flies, and are ideal for households with lots of busy hands (my kids never left the vinegar traps alone, rendering them ineffective), curious pets, or those people who just don’t appreciate bowls of vinegar strategically placed around the home.
Those bright yellow sticky traps, the low-tech version designed to tuck into fungus gnat-infested plants and around fruit bowls, also work pretty well without needing to occupy an outlet. They’re incredibly cheap — you can get 58 of them for less than $6 — and they come in cute shapes, but they can also be a total pain if you need to trap insects in high-activity areas. They’re also a little unsightly; the fly carnage is satisfying, sure, but we don’t need their corpses on constant display. (The plug-in versions are only sticky on the side facing the wall, so your houseguests aren’t faced with the evidence of your repugnant infestations.)
Ant Traps
Anyone who has dealt with ant infestations knows that they can be really difficult to eliminate. The good news is that almost all the experts (at least those interviewed by the New York Times’ Wirecutter, and CNN) agree that Terro Liquid Ant Baits are the best method of ant control homeowners can safely use on their own.
Terro ant baits contain a mixture of food and a slow-acting poison that worker ants — the ones you see invading your home — collect and bring back to the colony to share. For indoor uses, the experts at Wirecutter recommend the clear bait stations, which make it easy to monitor ant activity and see if the bait is being used. They’re not as immediately satisfying as kill-on-contact sprays, but they’ll be far more effective at actually getting rid of the ant colony instead of just temporarily deterring them.
Draining the… Drains.
Drain flies — which I must admit I’d never even heard of until researching and writing this article — are a little more complicated to fully eradicate. Homes & Gardens magazine interviewed several pest control professionals on how to get rid of drain flies without ruining your plumbing, and this is what they found:
- Identify which drains are infested by placing tape over drain openings with small holes to allow for airflow, overnight. “This will catch adult flies leaving the breeding site [:::shudder:::] and alert you to which drains need to be cleaned,” said Matt Freeburn, pest control expert at Clark’s Termite and Pest Control. He also warns that most cases of infestation have multiple breeding sources.
- Use a metal drain brush and hot water to clean kitchen sink drains and unclog shower drains. Freeburn says that chemical drain cleaners are okay for regular maintenance, but metal drain brushes (like this one) and hot — not boiling! — water works better to eliminate drain flies and their larvae. “While pouring boiling water down the drain may clean the organic matter and eliminate the infestation, it may also lead to damage to your sinks, pipes, or personal injury.”
- Follow up with vinegar and baking soda. A.H David, pest control expert and writer at Pest Control Weekly, told Home & Gardens that people should pour baking soda into the drain first, followed by an equal part of vinegar. This allows the reaction to take place in the pipe, cleaning the drain, deodorizing, and getting rid of blockages. He recommends leaving this solution in the drain for a few hours, and then rinsing with hot water.
- Place a plastic cup over the drain. Once you’ve treated your drains, catch any lingering flies by coating the inside of a disposable cup with petroleum jelly (like Vaseline), and placing it upside down over the drain. Any drain flies leaving to escape the cleaning solution or find food will be trapped in the jelly.
Pantry Moths
If you notice small, greyish-brown moths or caterpillars in areas where you store food, or if there is webbing and/or sticky secretions along the corners or insides of packages… brace yourself. These pernicious pantry pests have decided to set up shop.
Getting rid of these vermin will take a little elbow grease. Terro – the trusted ant bait people – recommend that you first completely empty out any area you suspect might be contaminated: cupboards, closets, drawers, or pantries. Carefully look through all the packaged food – even unopened packages are susceptible – inspecting everything for moths (alive or dead), larvae (tiny worms) eggs (which can look like clumps of grain) or their webbing. Discard any potentially infested food into a plastic bag and then remove it from the house entirely.
Then, you will need to do a deep clean. Vacuum all the corners of shelves and drawers, trying to make sure you’ve gotten every possible nook and cranny where crumbs might be hiding. (To be really thorough, it’s also a good idea to empty the vacuum, discard everything outside, and clean any filters with hot, soapy water or a vinegar solution.) Then wipe down all surfaces where food is stored with warm water and soap, or the trusted vinegar solution.
But what about the food/pantry goods that you’re unsure of? You’ve inspected everything thoroughly, but you still get the heebie-jeebies even thinking of what could be lurking inside… The National Pesticide Information Center reassures us that food items may be placed in a freezer for a week, which will kill any eggs or larvae present.
For further prevention of a re-infestation, you might want to invest in air-tight storage containers, or repurpose empty, glass peanut butter jars and canning jars. Some people say they’ve had good luck using non-toxic pheromone traps in the pantry, like the ones sold by Terro. And supposedly, bay leaves can ward off moths, so you can tuck a few into the corners of your shelves or inside containers, and pray.
Natural Repellants
If you’ve successfully gotten rid of unwanted pests, you are probably a bit more invested in keeping those bugs away. Here are a few natural remedies/repellants to consider:
- Peppermint oil, diluted in water with a splash of dish soap and sprayed along windowsills and doors, apparently works wonders for keeping spiders away.
- Ants can’t stand cinnamon. Sprinkle cinnamon across doorways to block ant trails. (One woman — who’d been waging war against ants in her kitchen for months — went viral online for sharing the idea to mix cinnamon with vaseline to create an ant-inpenetrable goop to smear on areas she knew they often entered, like between cracks in floorboards or tiles. It looks kind of nasty, but thousands of commenters tried it and testify to its effectiveness. At least it smells better than vinegar?)
*Featured image courtesy of cglade via CANVA
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