Fruit Fly Traps

A bait or scent draws the flies into a chamber or onto a sticky surface they cannot leave. They catch adults, which is both what you can see and what is laying the next generation - but they do not touch the breeding material itself.

The PestBuddy poison-free fruit fly trap is a ready-to-use unit for a worktop or beside a bin. The Eradisect hanger and glue pad system uses replaceable sticky pads and suits somewhere you want a trap running long term. Window stickers catch flies gathering at the glass. All are poison-free and suitable for kitchens.

Within about a metre of where you actually see the flies - fruit flies do not travel far, and a trap across the room will catch very little. Beside the fruit bowl, the bin, the recycling or the sink is usually right. Keep it off food preparation surfaces.

The traps are poison-free and made for kitchens. Place sticky pads and hangers where a child or animal cannot reach and get stuck to them, and site traps beside food areas rather than on preparation surfaces.

Until the bait loses its scent or the sticky surface fills up. A pad covered in flies or dust stops holding anything before it looks full, so replace it when catches drop off rather than on a fixed schedule.

The trap is working; the breeding site is still producing. Fruit flies go from egg to adult in about a week, so while fermenting material remains - overripe fruit, a spill under an appliance, a drain, the recycling, a fridge drip tray - new adults appear faster than a trap removes them. Find and clean the source and the trap starts to win.

Usually distance. Move it much closer to where you see the flies, ideally within a metre. On a baited trap, the bait may have dried out or lost its scent and needs replacing. And check what you have: fuzzy, moth-like flies sitting flat on tiles or around the plughole are drain flies, which respond to cleaning the drain rather than to a fruit-baited trap.

Cleaning, mostly. Traps handle the adults; the fix is removing what they are breeding in. Where numbers are heavy, a fast knockdown spray from our fruit fly control range clears the room quickly, but a trap plus a clean source is what keeps it clear.