Get Rid of Gnats
Pesky insects are common in just about every part of the world. Flies, mosquitoes and ants are found in multitude by nearly every property owner in America. Few insects, however, are quite as pesky as the gnat. Luckily, they are pretty easy to get rid of and there are a number of things you can do to prevent them from coming back again. Getting rid of gnats can be as simple as setting up a gnat trap, or pouring some ammonia down the drain.
Contents
Household Fixes
If you have gnats that you want to deal with right now, you may already have everything you need at home:
- If you have ammonia or vinegar and baking soda, you can Get-Rid-of-Gnats.
- If you have apple cider vinegar and a mason jar, you can Get-Rid-of-Gnats.
- If you have red wine and liquid soap, you can .
- If you have lemon-scented dish soap, you can .
Steps
Dealing with Gnats in Sinks and Drains
- Use ammonia to kill gnats in drains. To kill any gnats (along with their eggs and larvae) living inside your drain, simply pour a small dose of ammonia into the sink. This will effectively remove all traces of the gnats. Just be sure to leave the ammonia to dilute for several hours before using the sink again, as ammonia is also toxic to humans.
- As an alternative to the foul-smelling ammonia, you can put a couple of tablespoons of baking soda into the drain, followed by a cup of white vinegar. The mixture will fizz slightly, then should be left to sit for a couple of hours before running water.
- Keep the stopper on the drain closed.
- Do not pour vegetable or olive oil in your kitchen sink. While this may catch some of the gnats that hang around the drain or garbage disposal, it is not worth the trouble of a clogged drain.
Gnat Traps
- Make a homemade gnat trap. One easy way to rid yourself of a gnat infestation is with an easy and cheap do-it-yourself gnat trap. Find a used can or jar (Mason jars work especially well) and fill it with apple cider vinegar. Gnats are extremely attracted to the scent of vinegar. After you fill your can or jar, seal the lid and poke very small holes with a nail or screw. Leave the jar in a space gnats usually inhabit, most likely your kitchen or dining area. You can make several of these jars to leave in multiple locations, if necessary.
- The gnats will fly into the jar, but will be unable to leave. Once the jar becomes full of gnats and you no longer notice any flying around, dispose of the jar and say goodbye to your gnat problem.
- If you don't have apple cider vinegar on hand, any type of vinegar will do. Regular white vinegar works well, though you may want to add a couple of drops of dish soap (preferably lemon-scented) to the jar to make it more appealing to the gnats. Another alternative is to chop up a little banana or leave some banana peel in the jar.
- If you don't have any lidded jars available, you can make another kind of trap by cutting off the top third of a soda bottle and placing it upside down in the rest of the bottle to form a funnel. Tape it to secure.
- Make a wine and soap trap.
- Get a small container (such as a shot glass).
- Pour in some red wine until it's about three quarters full. This is a great way to use up that leftover wine in the end of the bottle.
- Add a drop or so of dish soap and stir it in gently.
- Leave it out. Soon enough thousands of gnats will be attracted to the wine. They try to sit on the liquids surface, but the dish soap breaks the wine's surface tension. Because of this, the gnats fall straight through and drown.
Stopping gnats from re-infesting
- Get rid of the gnats' food supply. Like so many other insects, gnats feed primarily upon the food scraps you leave out in the open. The best solution to preventing gnats is to not "feed" them in the first place. By cleaning your kitchen and dining room regularly and quickly disposing of leftover food scraps and cooking remains, you can prevent gnats from invading your house before they ever become a problem.
- When you store food, make sure it is in an airtight or wrapped container within a sealed cabinet or refrigerator. Keep fruit in the fridge, to prevent it from becoming overripe and attracting gnats.
- Never leave dirty dishes in the sink as the scraps of food stuck to them can attract gnats. Wash dishes immediately after use and cover the dish rack with a clean, dry towel.
- Cover your trashcans. You can prevent a gnat invasion by covering your garbage and waste cans around your house and property. If the garbage cans outside your home are open, gnats can feast there and similarly follow their noses into your home. By covering up your garbage, you won't allow gnats a chance to live off off your discarded food.
- Avoid keeping bags of trash in the house overnight. Take out all garbage every night and ensure the outdoor trash cans are covered.
- Clean out your indoor garbage containers regularly and wipe down the lid and surfaces with bleach. Bleach will kill gnats immediately upon contact.
- Don't over-water houseplants. Certain species of gnats love hanging around over-watered house plants and laying their eggs in the soil. You can prevent this from happening by keeping an eye on the soil and making sure it is damp rather than wet. Also ensure that the plant has adequate drainage.
- Check doors and windows. If you happen to notice gnats outside your home, check all of your doors and windows to make sure they are properly sealed with no gaps where gnats could enter. If you need to leave windows and doors open, use a fly screen with a tight mesh, making sure there are no holes in it.
- Watch out for dampness. Gnats love moist places for breeding, so look out for damp corners in the kitchen and other areas of the house. Wipe these damp spots down with bleach or another kind of disinfectant regularly to prevent gnats from invading. Never leave moist towels or clothes lying around, and keep rugs and mats in sunny spots to prevent dampness from developing.
Dealing with Gnats on Plants
- Deal with gnat-infested plants. Some types of gnats are attracted to the moist soil in house plants and even lay their eggs in it. There are several things you can do to get rid of the gnats and save your plant. Firstly, you should stop watering your plant until the top two inches of soil become completely dried out. This will cause the gnat eggs and larvae to dry out and die. Unfortunately, the plant may start to look a little sad, but it should quickly perk up once you start watering it again.
- Make a homemade gnat spray by mixing a couple of squirts of lemon-scented dish soap with water in a spray bottle. Spray this liberally all over the plant -- on the leaves, the stem and the soil.
- Leave the spray to sit on the plant for an hour or two, this should kill off the gnats. You may then want to spray the plant with plain water to rinse off the soap, to avoid causing damage to the plant.
- If you have taken all of these steps but you still notice gnats hanging around the plant, you may need to repot the plant using fresh soil.
Spraying Gnats
- Use a professional insect spray. There are many sprays available in supermarkets and hardware stores designed to kill all manner of flying insects. Simply spray the insecticide onto the gnats themselves, or in the usual areas they inhabit. This will immediately kill any and all gnats and other insects.
- Make sure to check the label to find out if the insect spray is harmful to pets. Depending on the strength of the spray, you, your family and your pets may need to stay out of the sprayed area for several hours until the chemicals dissipate.
Tips
- There is a vast variety of gnat species which are hard to identify and rarely worth the trouble. Once you have figured out where the gnats are coming from, you should be able to use one of the methods outlined above to get rid of them, regardless of what type of gnats they are.
- I used half a cup of lemon beer and put a drop or two of regular non-scented dish soap in it. I set up four of these traps through out my house. I pit ammonia down the drains and let it sit for two hours as well before rinsing the drains. All the gnats were gone by the next morning.
- Seal house plants in a trash bag and leave it for several days. The gnats will die off, and the plant will be fine.
- Take one tablespoon of lemon juice and some Windex in a cup. Get them to fall in and they will die.
- If you have a severe gnat infestation where the gnats are forming tornadoes over the sink drain, suck them up with a vacuum cleaner with a hose attachment. This will wipe them out faster than a liquid trap, is non-toxic, and doesn't stink like vinegar. With daily persistence, you'll kill them faster than they can breed, and they'll be gone in a week.
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