Fruit Flies Or Drain Flies? Tips To Get Rid Of Them
Finding a mass of tiny flies around your kitchen sink drain can be unnerving. Especially if this is the first time you've discovered something like this, you might be uncertain about how to deal with it. The fact is that these tiny flies could be one of two things. You may have an infestation of either fruit flies or drain flies. They look pretty similar to the untrained eye, so it can be tough to tell them apart. Luckily, the steps required to deal with both are pretty similar. While you don't have to differentiate between them, it can be helpful in some cases. Here's what you need to know about both fruit flies and drain flies.
Differentiating Drain Flies From Fruit Flies
If you're curious to determine whether you're dealing with drain flies or fruit flies, there are a few things that you can examine to help you narrow it down. Drain flies are sometimes compared to moths because their wings stay upright when they are stationary. In addition, they fly sort of erratically, making it look more like they are hopping or jumping instead of actually flying.
Fruit flies, on the other hand, fly fairly well. They are typically brownish-black or yellowish-brown in color, and their wings lie flat on their bodies when they sit on a surface. They are quite small, and you may see some of them hovering around fruit or bread in the kitchen as well as in the sink.
Dealing With A Drain Or Fruit Fly Infestation
The very first thing you need to do is address the adult flies that are already in the kitchen. There are a few different ways to do this depending on what you are most comfortable with. You can hang fly strips over the sink or build fly traps with vinegar and dish detergent.
Fly strips are fairly self-explanatory. Attach them to the ceiling, then pull the strip down so that it opens up. The sticky surface will catch the flies after the bait on the strip draws them in. Traps are a little bit different. You will need to create some shallow dishes filled with vinegar and a little bit of dish detergent. The vinegar will help to attract them, and the dish detergent will create a surface barrier to trap them in the water. Set the traps near the sink, and let the mature flies accumulate.
You can also try to kill all of the adult flies with a fly swatter, but you'll be chasing them for quite a while. This is more effort than it's really worth when the other methods are more hands-off and actually more effective.
Eliminating The Food Source
The next step is to eliminate any kind of food source that the flies may have found in the sink or drain. Clean the counters and sink thoroughly, then treat the drain with a chemical cleaner, such as a drain clog product. Let it sit in the drain for an hour or two before you flush it out, that way it has plenty of time to penetrate any larvae that may be present in the drain at the time.
Remember that drain flies and fruit flies will feed off anything that's built up and lined your pipes, including food particles trapped in clogs. Use a wire brush to scrub down into the pipe as far as you can. The brush will not only eliminate any residue inside the pipes but also destroy any fly larvae that may be present there.
Watch for any recurrence of these flies in the weeks after you address the problem. If they come back, you may want to call a local insect control specialist to treat your drains and the rest of your property to eliminate them. Talk to a company such as Pioneer Exterminating Company for more information.
Share