As soon as you sit down at the dinner table, it begins. The irritating tiny flies begin swarming around your food, making it almost impossible to enjoy your meal. If this is happening to you, you need to know how to get rid of fruit flies in your drain.
But first, let’s talk about why fruit flies are so intent on living in your drain.
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Why Do Fruit Flies Live in Kitchen Sink Drains?
It’s the last place you want to live, but to a fruit fly, a kitchen sink drain is an ideal environment. It’s dark and moist, and that all adds up to a happy place for a fruit fly. But once they’ve moved in, most people will do almost anything to learn how to get rid of fruit flies in your drain.
And here’s the thing: once a fruit fly moves in, it will hide in your sink drain and begin laying eggs. Fruit flies can lay up to 500 eggs at a time. Can you imagine sharing your dinner with 500 fruit flies? Obviously, the goal is to keep the fruit flies out of your drain in the first place!
How Do Fruit Flies Get in Your House?
Before we talk about how to get rid of fruit flies in your drain, let’s address the underlying issue: how they get in your house in the first place. And here’s the truth: They have multiple entry points. If you can prevent them from coming into your home, you will reduce their chances of setting up their home in your kitchen drain.
For instance, fruit flies can come into your home on the vegetables you purchase from the farmer’s market or grocery store. Or, even if you have screens on your windows and doors, an adult fruit fly is small enough to fit through the tiny holes.
Finally, anytime you bring live plants into your home, you risk bringing in fruit flies that hide in the leaves and dirt.
How to Get Rid of Fruit Flies in Your Drain: 7 Tips
If you already have fruit flies in your drain, it’s time to take action. Luckily, the tiny insects aren’t difficult to get rid of once you understand how to go about it. If you’re asking how to get rid of fruit flies in your drain, here are 7 things you can do.
1. Look for the culprit
Fruit flies love rotten fruit and vegetables, and if you have any lying around your kitchen, it’s time to throw them out. Once produce begins to go bad, fruit flies are instantly attracted to it. And once even one fruit fly discovers the rotting produce, more will follow.
Throwing out old or rotting produce is the first step in ridding your kitchen drain of fruit flies.
2. Close it off
Since you know that fruit flies love to live in your sink drain, you should do all you can to make it difficult for them to enter it. Start by using a sink stopper to keep them out. Place the stopper over the drain whenever you’re not using it so the pests can’t sneak inside of it.
3. Hide it away
When you leave produce sitting on your countertop, it acts as an invitation to fruit flies. Instead of hanging out a welcome sign, you can make your kitchen less hospitable to fruit flies. Do this by storing all of your produce inside the refrigerator where fruit flies can’t find it.
4. If you must
If you don’t want to store certain produce in the fridge, you can take some steps to eliminate any existing fruit flies. For instance, onions and potatoes can turn to starch or sugar when stored in the fridge.
In this instance, simply wash the produce as soon as you bring it inside to eliminate any fruit flies that hitched a ride on it to enter your home.
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5. Set a fruit fly trap
Your second option when learning how to get rid of fruit flies in your drain is to set a fruit fly trap. To do it, fill a small bowl with a combination of apple cider vinegar and dish soap. The apple cider vinegar will attract the flies, and the dish soap will coat their wings, making it impossible for them to fly out of the liquid.
6. Take it out
Having a large kitchen trash can is convenient. After all, most people don’t want to have to walk to the outdoor garbage can bin on a daily basis. But when you’re battling fruit flies (or you want to avoid the problem), it’s a great idea to take your trash outdoor every day.
That way, the trash inside the bin will never have the chance to begin rotting and attracting those pesky fruit flies!
7. Keep it clean
Fruit flies love everything that a clean sink drain doesn’t offer. They love slime, flecks of grease, and an overall area that contains rotting food particles. So, it makes sense that when learning how to keep fruit flies out of your drain that you simply don’t give them what they want.
To keep fruit flies out of your drain, make sure to clean your kitchen often and thoroughly. For instance, not only clean the exposed area on the bottom of your sink but also underneath the rim that lies at the top of your garbage disposal. The more you clean, the less the fruit flies will want to stay.
How to Get Rid of Fruit Flies in Your Drain — and the Stink
If there are two things that go together, it’s fruit flies and stink. Sometimes, you can take all of the steps we’ve listed above and still not rid your sink drain of the fruit flies. In cases like this, it’s time to take some drastic cleaning action.
If you’ve taken all of the steps above and still have fruit flies in your drain along with a stink you can’t get rid of, here are four more hard-core tactics you can take to finally rid yourself of the problem.
1. The double whammy
Sometimes sink stink comes from the gunk that has hardened and clung to your pipes or the walls of your garbage disposal. To rid your sink drain of the gunk, start by placing water or white vinegar in a pot and bring it to a boil. Then, slowly pour about half of it down the drain.
Here comes the magic part: Once the first part is down the drain, run the cold water in the sink. Then, wait a few minutes, which will give any gunk down there time to solidify. Then, pour in the other half and watch as all the slime goes down the drain.
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2. The power of two
For stubborn sink stinks, you may need to rely on the magic combination of baking soda and vinegar. This dynamic duo has the strength to rid your sink of the smell that attracts fruit flies. Start by pouring some baking soda down your drain.
After letting it sit for a few minutes, add some white vinegar to the mix. Pour it in the drain and watch as the two substances mingle to create a fizzy, bubbling mix. That mix will work to eliminate any crud that has found its way into your sink drain.
Your mixture should consist of one part baking soda and two parts vinegar. After allowing the mixture to sit in your sink drain for about an hour, pour hot water down the drain. This should rid your sink of any lingering food waste.
3. Put on those gloves
If you’ve tried the above methods and fruit flies are still finding their way into your sink drain, it’s time to bump things up a notch. This next method isn’t pretty, but it will remove any lingering scraps that can attract fruit flies.
Put on some rubber gloves because this next method isn’t for the weak-kneed. Place a bucket underneath your sink, and then take off the curved portion of the drainpipe that sits underneath your sink. Allow any excess water or crud to flow into the bucket.
Next, take the P-trap outside and rinse it out with your garden hose. Once it’s clean, bring it back inside and reassemble your drain pipes. You may want to pour some baking soda and vinegar down the drain to get rid of any lingering crud.
Last chance
If you’ve done everything we recommended above and still need to know how to get rid of fruit flies in your drain, you have one more option before calling in the pros. It’s time to think outside the box and look beyond your kitchen sink drain. In fact, it’s time to look outside.
Every house has a drain vent, which is an exterior vent where all indoor drains vent out of. Sometimes that vent becomes clogged, and that can cause the buildup and stink that attracts fruit flies. To determine whether or not this is your issue, you will need to look at that vent.
Using a ladder, climb up on your roof and look to see whether the vent is blocked. If it is, carefully take off the cover and clean it. It is not uncommon for leaves and other debris to block the vent.
Solved: How to Get Rid of Fruit Flies in Your Drain
Knowing how to get rid of fruit flies in your drain can be a lifesaver when you want to enjoy cooking or eating in the kitchen. Luckily, it’s not difficult to do. Just follow the suggestions in this article, and soon, your kitchen drain will be free of fruit flies.
Did you have another method to help get rid of fruit flies? If so, we would love to hear your suggestions. Please leave them in the comments below!
Last update on 2024-05-02 at 14:24 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
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