What's the best way to get rid of a gnat infestation?

You need to avoid spraying pesticide in your home, and instead correct the condition that is attracting the gnats.

Mix vinegar & dish soap in a bowl, & place it in the vicinity. They’ll dive in. Or, spray hairspray.

I had a problem like this and it was easily solved with beer. It’s weird but it worked.. leave just an inch or so of beer left in the bottle (bottle works best) and squirt a little dish soap in the bottle. The gnats, or fruit flies climb in to get the beer and when they make contact with the soap they get stuck and eventually die. I didn’t think it would work but when I went to pour out the beer there were a whole bunch of them in there.. YUCK.

I’ve also heard it works with juice. I just know beer worked for me. Good luck, those things can be a pain.

@goose756: interesting advice, I’ll try it first (right now!). Actually the whole problem started when I brewed some beer.

It started when you brewed the beer because they are drawn to the CO2 that the yeast releases.

To capture them you can take some yeast and warm water and mix it together. Then take a liter bottle and swirl some Karo syrup inside of the bottle so all the interior surfaces are sticky. Carefully add the yeast/warm water. Leave it where the gnats are and they will go in the bottle to check it out, land on the inside of the bottle and get stuck.

Where do you live?

I am over run with thousands of newly morphed tree frog babies….all you need is frogs. lol

First of all, they will breed in both drains and soil of houseplants. Get rid of all standing water. If possible let plant soils dry out completely before watering (or move them outside for a bit). Gnats can survive both boiling water and bleach, so put firm plugs in all drains, unless you need to drain water. Do not leave any food scraps out for them to eat.

Do all this and the problem will, if not go away, at least reduce significantly.

@Keysha

Wow, I have a new respect for Gnats! lol

Boiling water & bleach….that’s wild!

Are these little baby fruit fly type gnats? Or big buggers. If they are of the tiny fruit fly variety, I find making a trap works well.

To do this, take a disposable cup or bowl, put some sweet vinegar (red wine or cider vinegar work well) and a drop of dish soap in the bowl. Cover it with saran wrap and secure tightly with tape or a ruberband. Punch several small holes in the saran wrap with a toothpick or skewer. Make sure the holes are just barely big enough for a fly to crawl through. The flies will make their way into the container through the holes, attracted to the smell of the vinegar. They won’t be able to easily get out and will eventually drown in the liquid. I had SWARMS of fruit flies in my kitchen last week and having the traps out for an hour helped a lot, and by 24 hours later they were basically all gone.

@hannahsugs

Yes, I was going to ask if they might be baby fruit flies too.

If you have Bananas or plums or over ripe melons around, the fruit flies will come from out of nowhere.

@Merriment: they were attracted to the scent of the hops and converted sugars, I think. The problem started immediately after that, practically before the yeast was pitched.

@bolwerk

Are you doing some home brewing?

Mmmmm…there is a local vineyard and micro-brewery up the hill from me ( I am in NorCal wine country ) OMG…their Scotch ale is to die for. Buy it in the ceramic flip top returnable liter bottles….which reminds me….lol

I am just getting out of college and have had this problem too many times because of conflicting roommate habits. This is what I’ve done to get rid of it:

Immediately:
I would scrub with cleaner the areas in question.
Then go through your entire apartment and dump all trash. Scrub your trashcans.
I am a fan of “Entire Apartment Cleaning of Doom” in addition to this.

For the next couple of weeks:
Do not leave any food scraps out (as said before) but more importantly, cover or seal trashcans. Any organic trash you throw out will feed the bugs, be it a fruit fly or gnat.
Also, as said before, don’t leave any standing water out in planters or in cups.
Keep dishes clean and try to avoid leaving anything in the sink. Also try to keep your sink clean. A lot of food accidentally gets left in the sink when washing your dishes and it should be cleaned out.
Generally try to keep everything clean. Watch for spills and crumbs.
As said before, if you can put plugs over your drains when they aren’t in use, that will help.
You can try putting fly traps in those key problem areas (the sticky strips) but they always gross me out. With all of the cleaning and keeping an eye on food, you’ll reduce their baby-making and even kill a chunk. But depending on level of infestation, it may not be enough. If it isn’t enough, start actively killing any you see. I am a fan of spraying with windex and then disposing of them in running water, personally. But what you can use will depend on any babies or pets you may have.

Good habits to avoid re-infestation:
Keep up on the dishes. Don’t let them sit overnight if you can avoid it.
Regularly clean your garbage disposal. I’ve been told to put ice cubes and half a lemon in it to “scrub” it out. I am also a fan of bleaching it though for bacteria.
Avoid throwing food related trash in non kitchen trash cans. It’ll ensure that it doesn’t sit for a long time, waiting for the trashbag to fill up.
If you eat a lot of vegetables and fruits, throw any trash related to them away in a sealed baggie in your main trashcan or in a separate small trashbag that you can take out at the end of the night. Leaving organic trash like that in your main trashcan is just waiting for 1 bug to find it to feed.

I do the same thing for ants but with ants, I also invest in a bug spray and spray the perimeters of the apartment and specific rooms. I never use bug spray on a surface used for food preparation or where my cats’ food bowls are. Again, if you have babies or pets, this may be a problem. I have cats and have to use bug spray that specifically says “is not harmful to animals when dry.” I lock my cats up for the ½–1 hour and spray the apartment, let it dry, then let them out. I have had no health problems from them.

I’ve been using old beer to draw them in and kill ‘em with RAID. Seems to be having an effect.

@Coloma: I mostly brew in the fall, when it’s cooler here. Beer doesn’t brew too well in heat, and I don’t like wasting energy by running the AC 24/7 over a 5 gallon batch of beer.