Fruit flies are inevitable at some point in our lives. We spoke to an entomologist and a veteran restaurant director of operations to find out how to prevent them, and to learn how to get rid of them if you already have an infestation.
While fruit flies don’t cause the itch that mosquitoes do, and they may not be as annoying as houseflies, when you’ve got them in your home and buzzing in your face, there’ll be no convincing you that they aren’t the personal emissaries of Satan.
The good news is that, generally speaking, the methods for preventing and treating all these malevolent midges are pretty much the same, even if you’re not sure of the exact type that’s infested your home.“More often than not, they’re coming in from the outside,” says Dan Dilworth, a restaurant operations director and alumnus of Danny Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality Group who’s opened several dozen restaurants, from fine dining to fast-casual. “A lot come in through loading docks.
“You’re not going to be able to see them,” says Keck. “They’re probably the size of a grain of salt or something like that.”Fruit flies are the symptom of an issue—not the actual issue itself. And the issue in question can range from basic cleanliness and sanitation to simply bad luck. If you find that you have fruit flies or other similar pests, you should be regularly cleaning drains and sanitizing them, says Dilworth. “Continuously wipe down surfaces and sanitize them regularly. Keep aromatic fruits and vegetables out of the open, or keep them really well sealed off or in a refrigerator. love bananas and tomatoes, but any fruit you leave out to ripen at room temperature will attract them. If it’s hot and there’s sticky fruit out, they will come.
In addition, Keck says it also helps to keep the outside of your house well maintained, since that’s where most of the fruit flies will be coming from. Remove dead vegetation, grass clippings, and any nasty slime and gunk that accumulates around dead plants, which are basically like an all-you-can-eat fruit-fly buffet.
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