Cleaning expert shares one thing that banishes fruit flies – not white vinegar

Fruit flies can be a common pest around the late summer and early autumn, because of the prescence of ripening fruit and vegetables. These pesky insects are attracted to the fermenting sugars in these kinds of foods, as well as in drains and bins – making your kitchen the perfect place for them to hang out.

While fruit flies themselves aren’t directly harmful to humans as they don’t bite or sting, they can transmit bacteria from dirty environments to your food and surfaces, so it’s important to try to get rid of them when you notice them. Luckily, there are several ways to do that, and you don’t even need to get the white vinegar out, which seems to be the solution to so many cleaning conundrums.

TikTok cleaning sensation Ann Russell spoke about this in a video posted to her social media page. First she spoke about the reason you have fruit flies, which is “somewhere you have something that is attracting them”.

The secret to banishing them is actually so easy, and you don’t need to fork out on expensive ‘traps’, make traps at home or even get your white vinegar out the cupboard. The only thing that will get rid of them completely, according to Ann, is getting rid of the thing that’s attracting them.

For example, if they are attracted to your bin it might be because there’s a food source in there. So you might have to give it a proper wash to get rid of them.

Sometimes you might feel like they just keep coming back. According to Ann, this is because if you’ve had them for a while, “they will have laid eggs”. She continued: “One of the prime spots is a bin or a fruit bowl,” and the problem is that the eggs will “continue to hatch even when there’s nothing to feed on”. So you might need to keep cleaning and making sure the area doesn’t have any remnants of whatever was attracting them.

Sometimes you might think you have fruit flies in your drain, which can be especially frustrating. However, these are called drain flies, according to Ann. In that case, there’s something else you can do to get rid of them.

Ann explained that all you need is to pour boiling water and a “handful of soda crystals down your sink every night”. The cleaning expert also has a silicone funnel, which can be used to pour boiling water in the overflow of the sink.

If you think your overflow needs an especially thorough clean, Ann also recommends using small brushes, which she purchases from Amazon. As a summary, Ann said: “The trick is always to clean. Those traps [which you can buy or make at home] but they attract them because it’s food. They might get trapped in them, but not all of them do, and it will bring them.”