By Country Living Staff
It happens to us all: You forget to wipe up a sugary spill, overwater your houseplants, or neglect your garbage duties for a few days…and suddenly you’ve got yourself a full-fledged, bona fide bug infestation.
Never fear: We’re here to help you figure out how to get rid of gnats once and for all. But before you take a stab at banishing these winged pests from your home, the first and most important step is to ensure that they are, in fact, gnats (particularly if you had planned on using a chemical gnat killer).
After all, there are several different types of itty-bitty flying insects out there (if that’s the case, you might need to read how to get rid of fruit flies or how to prevent mosquitoes, as each requires a slightly different removal tactic.
While fruit flies are typically brown and a bit more “round,” fungus gnats will look black and feature long legs. And a third offender, the “drain fly,” has a fuzzier appearance and larger wings; as the name suggests, these guys tend to hang out around sink drains.
But once the identification phase is taken care of, you can begin to take the necessary steps toward marking this task off your spring cleaning checklist. (For longer-term success, consider investing in one of the best bug zappers on the market.)
More options include:
- Use fly paper: There’s really no solution more trustworthy—or oddly satisfying—than fly paper, which simply catches flying bugs on its sticky exterior. You can either hang “ribbon fly paper” from areas in your home that get a lot of gnat traffic or try window fly paper, which will cover an entire window in an adhesive sheet.
- Try a bug zapper: Although it works better with larger bugs (such as mosquitoes), a bug zapper is always an option. And nowadays, there are plenty of brands and designs that are safe to use indoors, such as the KATCHY device pictured here. These noiseless machines should be able to catch the majority of gnats and flies in your home, and the best part is, you won’t have to work too hard to make the magic happen (save for the initial purchase and placement).
- Try making a trap using apple cider vinegar: A half cup of warm water plus two tablespoons of apple cider vinegar, a tablespoon of sugar, and about six drops of liquid dish soap just might be able to cure your gnat woes. They’ll be lured in by the sugary mixture, but once they dip in for a drink, the sticky dish soap will trap them. Simply mix the solution together in a small bowl, place it in the areas where you’ve noticed the most gnats, and wait for results.
- Buy a chemical spray: If things get really bad, you may find yourself in need of a more serious bug killer. Insecticide is one option, though we caution you against using it if you’ve got small children around (and as always, you’ll want to be sure you’re using the spray according to the manufacturer directions). This Hot Shot Kitchen Bug Killer is one option that specifically targets gnats in addition to several other household pests.
- Use a wine trap: Don’t worry; we’re not asking you to sacrifice your wine collection just to kill a few gnats! Instead, for this nifty trapping trick, you’ll want to use an expired wine—one that’s nearly turned into vinegar. You can use it in nearly the same way that you used the aforementioned apple cider vinegar trick: Pour out some of the stale wine into a small vessel, add in a couple drops of dish soap, then place the mixture in gnat-filled areas of your home and wait for the bugs to drop in.
- Set a candle trap: Here’s a trick that seems almost too good (and easy, and old-school) to be true: Place a tall candle into a candlestick, then place the candlestick into a small pan filled with water. Turn off all the lights, then light the candle and wait for gnats to make their way to the flame. They’ll either hit the flame itself or fall into the water below. As with any lit candle though, you must stay in the room and attend to the flame with caution until it’s time to blow it out.
- Lure them with rotten fruit: Yes, the very thing that caused the infestation in the first place might be your best bet when it comes to ending it. Add a few pieces of overripe fruit to a large bowl, then cover with plastic wrap and use a rubber band to keep it firmly in place. Use a toothpick to poke a few holes in the top. Soon, gnats and fruit flies will flock to the fruit, making their way in through the tiny holes—but they won’t know how to reemerge.
- For drain flies, try a diluted bleach solution: If you’ve noticed that the gnats in your home are converging around your sink drains, they may be drain flies—in which case, the other traps we’ve discussed here may not work well for them. These flies are best dealt with using bleach. Protect yourself and your lungs properly, then dilute one-half cup of bleach with about one gallon of water and pour it down the affected drain.