My entire life, my entire family has never called a “Fruit fly” a “Fruit fly.”
Everyone I ever knew called them “dog-peter gnats.” Or just “dog-peters” for short. Here’s some examples of how to properly use the term “dog-peter” in a sentence:
- “There are dog-peters flying all around my kitchen.”
- “There’s a dog-peter in my wine.”
- “Why are there so many dang dog-peters on the porch?”
- “Take out the garbage, it’s full of dog-peters.”
I never thought anything of this. Just that those little annoying gnats flying all over the place in summer are called dog-peters.
Then, I moved out & found that one one else knew what a “dog-peter” was. Furthermore, I learned that they are not dog-peters. They are fruit flies.
So, where did the term “dog-peter gnats” come from?
If you ask my Dad, Mom, Uncle, Aunt, brother or any one else in my family …… they will plainly say:
“Dog-peter gnats, you know, those gnats that are always flying around a dog’s peter.”
Now that I have painted a lovely picture for you this cold, freezing, afternoon, I’m going to tell you how to get rid of them.
There is a chicken bowl sitting next to my kitchen sink which makes the perfect dog-peter trap. If you don’t have a bowl full of kitchen scraps you can make a trap with a mashed banana or other equally odorus food product.
Bowl of kitchen scraps.
Take some plastic wrap and cover the entire surface tightly.
Poke a bunch of holes in the plastic.
You are done. The dog-peters will smell the yummy smells coming from those tiny slits & fly into your trap. Then, they won’t be able to figure out how to get back out.
If I have 300 fruit flies in my kitchen & I do this. The next day I will only have 3. It works great.
I will tell you that if you have been canning for 3 months straight and your fruit fly infestation has reached 2 billion you will have to set a trap like this for several days in a row to get them all.
Another great tip is to be sure there are no other smelly, attractive odors lingering in other places that may entice your flies elsewhere. Be sure there’s nothing in the trash, nothing in the disposal, nothing in the hall bathroom garbage can, etc. When there’s other targets around the house to attract your flies – you won’t be able to get them.
There was a week we considered moving because there were so many fruit flies sharing our home with us. It was either move out or bomb the house. I’m tellin’ you it was bad.
I’m happy to say we didn’t move or set off any fumigators. But, I did take out the garbage, run the dishwashers, empty and scrub the sink and set the “bowl-fruit-fly-trap” every single night for over a week.
I finally got them. I complained about them on social media every day that week. I didn’t think I’d ever get ahead.
If this is you, I would encourage you to hang in there. Just keep setting traps. If the flies have moved into other areas of your home you can set additional traps where ever you have flies.
Just take the traps out in the morning & give it to the chickens.
Dog-peters gone!
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XO,
Candi
