Fruit flies are some of the worst household pests that exist, made worse by the fact that they are seemingly impossible to get rid of.
The flies are attracted to fruit, other foods, and garbage, and seem to invade any space once they enter.
Well now, one TikTok user has spurred a furious debate about the best means of eradicating the pesky insects, after candidly opening up about how her home has been invaded by them of late.
Sarah Molnar, a personal trainer living in upstate New York, who posts under the username @happyhealthysarahh, took to the app recently to share a video of herself expressing horror and disgust at the number of fruit flies she has seen buzzing around her home.
To add insult to injury, Molnar explains that she installed a plug-in LED trap.
The product had been “phenomenal” at trapping the bugs, but no matter how many got stuck inside it, she was still finding them elsewhere in her home, she adds.
“This thing is phenomenal,” she notes, while holding up the trap to show off the dozens of fruit flies stuck inside it. “But those have been flying all over my house.”
She adds: “I wash my bananas [but] I heard they live in your garbage disposal.”
Her candid video—which she shared with the disclaimer, “Can we openly talk about this and not be like, ‘Oh my gosh what kind of house are you living in?’”—quickly went viral, amassing more than 223,000 views in a matter of days.
And it seems that Molnar is not alone in her struggle, with several people commenting that they have been experiencing similar issues in their own home.
“YES!! They’ve been terrible this year!” one person said. Another added: “Yes! They are bad this year! One literally flew in my nose the other day?!”
“I swear they are coming from outside when I open my windows with screens on them … I have noticed the same this year,” a third person added.
Some TikTok users offered an array of potential solutions, revealing hacks that they have relied on in the past to stop the influx of fruit flies in their home.
“I scrub my sink with Dawn, pour baking soda down my drain, and let that sit for 20 minutes,” one person suggested. “Then pour boiling water down the drain. I do this every few days. Works pretty good.”
“Boiling water down the drains to kill the eggs in the pipes,” someone else chimed in.
Another viewer urged Molnar to try something much simpler (and sweet-smelling): cinnamon sticks.
“Cinnamon sticks!! no fruit flies!!! just lay them in your fruit bowl or by the bananas!! game changer!!” the viewer wrote.
However, a few replied that the flies in Molnar’s home weren’t actually fruit flies, but rather drain flies, which are more like moths and hang around trash, sewers, and drain pipes.
“Drain flies. Keep the plug in, dump boiling water down your drains regularly and draino, and cover them when you’re not using them,” one person advised. “They’re hard to get rid of but it’s possible.”
“Drain flies,” one user determined. “You need to treat your drains nightly before bed and then cover with plastic.”
Yet another user offered up one other potential theory: The flies in question are actually fungus gnats.
“OMG! They were terrible for us this year! They’re not fruit flies, they’re fungus gnats!” the person wrote. “Once they hatch, it’s impossible to stop them. Cleaned everything, poured bleach down the drains etc. They were finally gone in a couple of weeks. But, girl, they freaked me out!”
According to the experts at Arrow Exterminators, fruit flies often enter the home through gaps in the walls and around the doors or windows.
“Fruit flies often come in to your home through cracks in walls, loose seals around doors or windows, or via eggs laid inside of a piece of produce from the grocery store,” the company’s website states.
“Fruit flies can seem to come from out of nowhere to infest your home, but this is mainly due to how quickly fruit flies breed and develop.”
According to the experts, “The best way to catch and get rid of fruit flies is by using apple cider vinegar and dish soap to create a potent and irresistible trap.
“Fill a bowl or cup about half way with the vinegar and add a couple of drops of dish soap. You can also pop the mixture into the microwave for a couple seconds to maximize the potency and attractiveness. Cover with plastic wrap held in place with a rubber band and poke a few holes in the wrap covering the mouth of the bowl or cup.”