12 Ways To Deal With Gnats In Your Kitchen
Creepy crawlies of all shapes and sizes live among us, whether we want them to or not. While some bugs, like honey bees, are quite beneficial to our environment, others, like gnats, can be so annoying that they are hard to view in a positive light. If you have ever left food out by mistake in your kitchen, you are probably well aware of how quickly pests can find their way into your home — gnats included.
Certain times of the year, like the summer, are more prone to pest problems. This is because a humid climate is exactly the type of environment that gnats are attracted to. If you find yourself with a gnat infestation, keep these methods in mind for how to go about dealing with them. Many of these tricks have to do with making sure your kitchen is pest-proof, while other tips are for eliminating gnats once they find their way inside your house.
1. Check common gnat hiding spots
There is at least one piece of good news concerning the ordeal of controlling a gnat infestation in your home: these pests are easy to look for. Gnats are fairly predictable creatures; it shouldn't take long to find the source of an infestation. In general, gnats and fruit flies like to congregate in areas where food or trash is found. Places where organic debris is stored are ideal environments for gnats to move in and breed.
This means that fighting pests is as easy as maintaining a clean environment. Staying on top of food waste is key, especially if you are accustomed to buying more perishable food items such as fruits. Investing in good storage containers for your food is also helpful. This method will help keep items airtight, reducing the risk of gnats finding your food before you have a chance to consume it.
2. Run your air conditioner
Most areas will have a few hot, humid days from time to time. The advent of the air conditioner has helped to make our lives much cooler on these days, but these household appliances do more than just regulate the temperature. Air conditioners also help to dehumidify the air in your home. Some air conditioners even have settings to focus solely on dehumidifying, allowing the devices to do this without lowering the temperature.
Air conditioners can be useful tools to combat the gnats in your home. Gnats tend to avoid cool, dry environments, so an air-conditioned home won't produce the ideal climate these bugs are looking for. Gnats like humidity because these environments speed up the process of food decay. The less your home resembles a utopia for spoiled fruit, the less likely you are to run into a pest problem. However, running an air conditioner should be done in conjunction with other tips for keeping gnats at bay.
3. Pour bleach down your drains
Keeping your kitchen clean is a good habit to be in for several reasons — including the ability of cleanliness to keep pests at bay. In addition to a good spring clean each year, regularly tidying up and wiping down your kitchen should be a weekly ritual, depending on how much you use the space. If you don't make regular cleaning a habit, bacteria and undetected food particles can accumulate, which can lead to gnats.
Because gnats like to thrive in areas of high moisture, an area of your kitchen that may need extra attention is your sink — specifically the drain. One way to keep gnats from congregating in your sink is to clean it by pouring bleach down the drain. If you don't like using harsher cleaning products such as bleach, you can seek out natural alternatives that get the job done. But depending on how many gnats you are dealing with, you may also want to consider going in with more heavy-duty cleaning products every once in a while.
4. Don't over-water your plants
If you have a green thumb, then your home may be filled to the brim with houseplants. Adding some greenery to your living space has a whole host of benefits, including adding a sense of calm and even improving the air quality. While the plants themselves will not attract more bugs into your home, the way that you go about taking care of your plants might. Specifically, your watering schedule may have a huge impact on whether or not gnats get into your house.
A common theme to preventing gnats from settling in your home is to keep your house as dry as possible. But plants need water in order to survive, so a regular watering schedule is important for them. If you over-water your plants while doing so, it could attract gnats. If your plants are receiving too much water, the moisture that remains will draw gnats into your area. To avoid this situation, read up on how much water your plants really need and stick to a regimented watering schedule.
5. Put lids on your garbage
Food needs to be spoiled to attract gnats. But bugs will find their way to food no matter what state it is in, so proper food storage is important in order to protect your provisions from pests. Food storage also extends to how you store food waste, meaning it is time to take a look at your trash situation.
There is quite a bit of food waste in America, so a good first step would be to find out ways to minimize the amount of food-related trash you create on a daily basis. However, food will inevitably wind up in your garbage pail, so you may need to take extra precautions to reduce the number of gnats that are attracted to your trash.
With garbage, all you may need to do is invest in a lid that will create a more airtight barrier between your garbage and the rest of the house. This is especially true if your trash does not live in a closed-off space, like in a cabinet under your sink. Also, consider taking your kitchen trash outside to the dumpster sooner. This will help to prevent large amounts of trash from sitting in your kitchen longer than needed.
6. Use peppermint oil
Many of the best gnat management tips are related to preventing gnats from getting into your home in the first place. But inevitably, you may find yourself with a pest control issue where gnats have already found their way inside. In these cases, you may need to take action to rid your space of gnats. One environmentally safe way of doing that is to use peppermint oil.
Peppermint oil is a great ingredient to have on hand for a variety of pests, including raccoons, deer, flies, and beetles. Whether you choose to keep peppermint plants in your home, or you purchase peppermint oil, there are multiple ways to go about it. If you choose the latter, you can place diluted peppermint oil in a spray bottle, and spray it in needed areas. You may find that gnats are kept at bay with one simple product. Plus, your house will smell nice and minty fresh.
7. Purchase sticky traps
There are several tried-and-true household pest remedies that are effective. Such is the case with sticky traps. The concept of sticky traps is almost too simple to explain and the method almost sounds too good to be true. Could laying out some strips of paper with an adhesive surface really be the best remedy to rid your home of gnats once and for all?
While you may need to test various methods of pest control to see what works best in your home, many swear by the efficacy of sticky traps. On Reddit, one user pointed out how it works for those seeking natural, non-chemical solutions. Sticky traps also work great if you think you will have a hard time remembering to stay on top of other methods, like spraying your home with various chemicals.
These large pieces of plastic will eventually catch gnats, leading to their demise. Because of this, it may be a more unsightly solution to have sheets with dead bugs stuck to them in your home. However, these traps can be rather effective.
8. Use apple cider vinegar
If you are steeped in the world of homemade remedies for pest control, then you have probably heard about the effectiveness of apple cider vinegar. They say you can attract more bees with honey than vinegar, but when it comes to pest management in your home, vinegar can be more useful.
A mixture of apple cider vinegar, sugar, and dish soap can eliminate gnats. The smell of the vinegar and sugar attracts the gnats, while the mixed-in dish soap eventually drowns and kills them. According to one Reddit user, putting a light source on this mixture may help attract gnats to the mixture even more effectively.
However, other Reddit users said this method doesn't eliminate all of the gnats in a single go, so you may need to rinse and repeat the step a few times. Additionally, it may not be the most effective gnat elimination method overall. You may need to use another remedy to rid your home of gnats once and for all.
9. Use overripe fruit to trap gnats
One of the quickest ways to attract bugs to your kitchen is to let food sit out without the proper storage. Bugs are even more likely to show up if you allow that food to go bad. But spoiled food can also help eliminate bugs in your kitchen. It may sound a bit weird, but keeping overripe fruit around — instead of throwing it out right away — can be just the solution you have been looking for. The next time you notice your fruit is starting to go bad, get ready to head to war with the gnats.
The spoiled fruit will work as a trap to lure the gnats and fruit flies in. Of course, this requires making sure gnats cannot escape once they find the fruit. A large bowl with plastic wrap should work fine. Just make sure you poke some holes in the plastic wrap and secure it around the bowl with an elastic like a rubber band. The gnats will head straight to the fruit, but then find themselves trapped in the plastic wrap.
10. Try a red wine trap
A glass of red wine pairs wonderfully with a steak dinner, but it can also be the remedy you have been looking for when it comes to pest control. For this trick, you can use the last bit of wine in a bottle, or you can go out and find a cheaper bottle of wine if you do not want to use your favorite cabernet on pests.
The concept behind this hack is that red wine has aromatic properties similar to vinegar. Have you ever sipped on red wine that is perhaps a bit past its peak freshness and found that it tastes more acidic? The same logic applies to scent; gnats are drawn in by wine's vinegar-like smell. To try this hack, put some red wine in a bowl to lure the gnats in, then trap them by putting some plastic wrap over the bowl.
You could even use a bottle of unfinished red wine for this trapping method. If you have half of a glass left in the bottle, save it for the gnats — just be sure to set it up in a way that makes it impossible for the gnats to escape once they fly into the bottle.
11. Use a bug zapper
Sometimes, you must be aggressive to stay on top of a gnat infestation in your home. To deal with these pesky bugs, you may need to skip over the natural sprays and go straight to zapping. Bug zappers are useful for instantly ridding your home of bugs like flies, mosquitos, and gnats.
These devices lure pests in with light, then kill bugs that fly into them with electrocution. They come in different shapes and sizes, with handheld zappers as well as stationary bug zappers both on the market. Feel free to shop around and find which would work best for your home. You can even double down with another tip from this list and lure the gnats to the zapper with vinegar, spoiled fruit, or sticky traps. Try and experiment to see which combination of methods best keeps your home pest-free. You may be surprised at what works for you.
12. Set a candle trap
If you have never considered setting a trap using candles, let this be your sign to give it a try. For safety, this is one you will need to perform during the day, unlike other traps that you can set and forget about overnight.
All you need to do is light a small candle. A tea candle or short candle will work fine. Once the candle is in its holder, place the candle in a cup of water. You can even double down by placing the candle in soda — as one Reddit user shares — or even try some apple cider vinegar to lure the gnats in quicker.
You will want to have the candle trap in the darkest room possible so that the gnats are attracted to the light. The candle will work similarly to a zapper: once the gnats get too close, the flame of the candle will kill them. This may be a good budget solution if you do not feel like going out and buying a bug zapper, as you may already have all of the tools necessary to try this at home.