topic Re: Anyone have trouble with gnats in Home

Anyone have trouble with gnats

geegerbee — Sun, 24 Jan 2016 22:14:13 GMT

I have them in the family room and they are so irritating. I have to keep my cups of coffee and drinks with covers over them or I will be drinking gnats that fall in them. I have tried putting out a bowl with dishsoap and vinegar and only 1 fell in there. I have even tried the dangling sticky strips and catch a few, but they keep coming. Any help?

Re: Anyone have trouble with gnats

rrpell — Sun, 24 Jan 2016 22:26:26 GMT

"Fruit flies"? @geegerbee I find they come in on my bananas so I always wash them as soon as I bring them home . To control them, get out some glasses and poor some wine into them. Cover with plastic wrap and poke some holes with toothpicks. The pesky guys can fly in but they don't fly out.

Re: Anyone have trouble with gnats

ValuSkr — Sun, 24 Jan 2016 22:28:20 GMT

Can you tell, or where do you think, they're coming from? There are many things that can be done to control fungus gnats.

Re: Anyone have trouble with gnats

Pearlee — Sun, 24 Jan 2016 22:37:17 GMT

@geegerbee If they are fruit flies, which I was plauged with for a while: this worked.

Put out bowls of apple cider vinegar. They are attracted to it, fal in and die. I threw out bowlfuls of them over the summer and finally got rid of all of them. You trap them, throw them out, and there eventually are no more left breeding in your house.

Re: Anyone have trouble with gnats

loveschocolate — Sun, 24 Jan 2016 22:43:50 GMT

@Pearlee wrote:
@geegerbee If they are fruit flies, which I was plauged with for a while: this worked.
Put out bowls of apple cider vinegar. They are attracted to it, fal in and die. I threw out bowlfuls of them over the summer and finally got rid of all of them. You trap them, throw them out, and there eventually are no more left breeding in your house.

@geegerbee, I also used apple cider vinegar placed in mason jars. I punched holes in the lid with an ice pick. Left out for a few days, and no more pesky insects. This stuff really works!!!!

Re: Anyone have trouble with gnats

GSPgirl — Sun, 24 Jan 2016 22:51:14 GMT

I'm pretty sure we had fruit flies Nov and Dec. We finally got rid of them by leaving glasses of red wine out. It will take awhile. This is the only thing that has worked for us. I have tried using Apple Cider vinegar and it's never worked for me. You don't need but a half a glass. We had ours in the family room, too.

Re: Anyone have trouble with gnats

hoosieroriginal — Sun, 24 Jan 2016 22:50:35 GMT

Are they coming from plants you have in your room?

Re: Anyone have trouble with gnats

kaslots1 — Sun, 24 Jan 2016 22:53:17 GMT

Bleach down the drains help. Ours seem to come up thru there.

Re: Anyone have trouble with gnats

Serenity-Now — Sun, 24 Jan 2016 23:08:47 GMT

We once had an issue with many insects we thought were regular gnats, but they ended up being Fungus Gnats, which were drawn to unseen mold from an undetected leak in our bathroom pipes. Once we got rid of that issue, the gnats went away. If you aren't certain what these bugs are, you might want to have a bug specialist check into it for you, to find out best how to get rid of them, whatever they are. Good luck!

Re: Anyone have trouble with gnats

IamMrsG — Sun, 24 Jan 2016 23:14:14 GMT

@geegerbee Do you have many potted plants, or particularly large ones, in the room? Wet soil can be a draw for them.

Re: Anyone have trouble with gnats

geegerbee — Mon, 25 Jan 2016 00:11:28 GMT

Actually, I do have several plants in the area, including some I must have overwatered so the soil would be damp. I think I'll put the pots outside--the cold should kill them. Thanks!

Re: Anyone have trouble with gnats

brewhaha — Mon, 25 Jan 2016 00:25:32 GMT

They are attracted to older plant matter. The best thing to do is to remove old fruits & vegetables or keep them sealed.

Re: Anyone have trouble with gnats

jlkz — Mon, 25 Jan 2016 01:01:20 GMT

A while back someone on these boards gave a recipe for ridding a home of pesky gnats. To the bowl of Apple cider vinegar, she added a few drops of blue Dawn.

I suggested this this to a sandwich shop at home with a gnat problem: they never covered the bowls. They had to keep trapping the gnats as new ones would come in with the boxes of onions they used every day.

HTH