How to Eliminate Gnats from Your Home

Tiny flying insects are colloquially known as gnats, even when they’re quite different in appearance and habit. However, they all cause the same kind of annoyance and can spread bacteria from areas like the bathroom to food sitting out on the counters or table. Dealing with gnats doesn’t have to involve buying specific pesticides or traps from the store. There are plenty of homemade traps and slow-acting solutions to get rid of all types of gnats for good. Particularly intense infestations most likely deserve commercial traps for immediate help and long-term changes to keep the insects from returning.

As you may already guess, the habitats preferred by the four types of gnats also tell you how to prevent their appearance or banish existing infestations. While traps and sprays can knock down the population of larvae and flying adults, only removing the conditions that attract gnats will stop the cycle for good. It can be tricky to search out all the sources of spoiled food, hidden trash, or leaking water that is setting off the gnat cloud in the first place. With a complex infestation of multiple types of gnats at once, you may need to relocate potting plants, clean up the bathroom drains, and find that lost orange that rolled behind the refrigerator to end it for good.

Using materials that you already have around the home can help reduce the number of adult gnats in particular right away. Pouring bleach and water mixed 50/50 down drains will eliminate any larvae in them, and finding and removing fruit or food is key to reducing other gnats. To attract fruit flies, phorid flies, and some types of fungus flies, try a fruit juice, wine, or beer-based trap. Pour a little of the liquid into a shallow container like a bowl. Add a few drops of dish soap so that flies that touch the surface become trapped. If you see too many phorid flies, in particular, hopping away still, try a two-liter bottle cut in half. Tuck the top half into the bottle to create a funnel that the gnats can’t fly back up.

Heading to the pest control part of a hardware store gives you the widest range of options for controlling gnats in the home. Sticky traps and strips work well for catching gnats buzzing around a particular area. Some liquids and sprays can be used in areas that are hard to dry out or sanitize, such as the drains under refrigerators or in crawl spaces. Light traps can work well as a renewable option because some gnats are drawn to UV light and will drown in a small water tray set just below it. Handy sprays kill off adults and target larvae when applied to the recommended areas.

Don’t let gnats make your home seem less sanitary than it is when there are plenty of options for managing them. These small annoyances tend to be a spring to summer complaint in most parts of the country. If nothing else, you should see them disappear when winter arrives, giving you time to plan for prevention for the next warm season.