Fruit flies are pesky, nagging, persistent pests that can be difficult to get rid of once and for all, something that TikToker Majda Medved (@majdamedved) experienced first hand in her own home.
After trying a slew of different methods for exterminating the miniscule nuisances, Medved eventually found a solution that requires a bit of patience and consistency, but she says it was a surefire method in ensuring her home was fruit-fly free. She shared her trick in a viral clip that’s garnered over 3.5 million views on the popular social media platform.
@majdamedved we did it 3 times a day (morning, afternoon, night) and after 2 days there were none left!! keep the traps out as well. #fruitflies ♬ original sound – majda medved
Medved begins her video speaking directly into the camera about her fruit fly issue.
“OK, so this is really embarrassing, but I’m gonna tell you guys anyway ’cause maybe it can help someone,” she prefaces. “But we just recently had a really bad case of fruit flies and we did like all the homemade traps and store-bought traps. It was catching a lot of them, but we still kept having like so many fruit flies and we’re like are we dirty?”
Trying to understand why there were so many of the pests flitting around the house, Medved decided to put some elbow grease into conducting a grime apocalypse on all things unsanitary in her kitchen, but it still didn’t seem to help.
It was at this moment she decided to perform some reconnaissance on her enemy. If she could understand them better, then she’d have a better shot at destroying them from within. She learned that she needed to attack these flies at the source and not only kill the adult ones she could see, but the unhatched babies brimming in the eggs that adult fruit flies lay as well.
“So then I did a little bit of research and I found out that the traps really only catch the adult fruit flies. The bigger problem is the eggs that they lay and they’re gonna mostly lay these eggs inside of your drains,” she shares. “And even though you’re running continuous water all the time, that’s not getting rid of them. They can live in that for like 12 hours it has to be boiling water so that’s what we did. We poured boiling water down our kitchen sink and we were like great no more fruit flies!”
However, the boiling water technique didn’t end up terminating all of the fruit flies.
“Wrong. We still had fruit flies so we were just like what is going on?!” Medved notes.
She then realized that all the drains in her home were connected, so she decided to pour boiling water down every drain. This full-scale affront on the fruit flies ultimately ended up working, but it required several pours of boiling water down each and every drain in her home over several days.
“So once we did that, and we had to do a few times because this isn’t gonna be like a one and done type of thing, you know?” Medved shares. “You do have to do a few times because think about the adults that are still flying around probably laying more eggs in the sink. So it’s gonna take a few days, but I promise you once you do that, they’re gonna be gone.”
In the comments section, folks shared their own techniques for mitigating the amount of fruit flies that enter their home.
“Whenever we go on vacation we cover all the drain in the house otherwise there are always fruit flies in the bathroom when we get back,” one user said.
Another person mentioned other warning signs to look out for when it comes to fruit flies. “They also lay eggs on the walls. They’re little brownish specs,” they said.
Someone else said that their fruit fly problem in their drains had gotten so bad that their sink started backing up and they needed to hire a plumber to root everything out.
Others were simply astounded that TikTok’s algorithm was able to clock how they were experiencing their own problems with fruit flies.
“HOW DOES THIS GODFORSAKEN APP KNOW ALL MY STRUGGLES AND SUCCESSES,” one said.
Another wrote, “My phone HAS to be listening to me because my house is currently infested with fruit flies.”
Someone else said that warm water and Dawn dish soap works just as well as boiling water. “Hot water and Dawn dish soap! Learned it from working at a bar,” they claimed.
While there are fruit fly traps that utilize a bit of dish soap and apple cider vinegar along with plastic wrap with holes poked in it, and other types of easily crafted traps, these, like Medved says, are only really effective at killing adult flies.
Country Living penned a piece delineating “how to get rid of fruit flies, once and for all” and the outlet mentions that deep cleanings of drains are a good way to ensure that you’re killing fruit flies. They also noted some of the other methods that Medved mentioned: wiping down surfaces, keeping your kitchen clean and devoid of any overripe or rotting fruit & produce, along with the boiling water drain cleaning trick, should all work as a multi-fronted approach to ridding your home of the pests.
The Daily Dot has reached out to Medved via TikTok comment for further information.
