# Tips for getting rid of gnats?



## TheBladedRoden

Gnats were a problem at my last house since January up until we moved out in July. I was hoping after moving we'd be rid of them, but even with sterilizing the bunny cage as much as we could during the transfer, the gnats have somehow found a way here too and have multiplied until there are literally hundreds hanging out on the ceilings!


----------



## middlemuse

Apple cider vinegar. They're attracted to fermented fruit. Put some in a small dish, and put the dish in a ziplock bag. Leave the bag open until it's full of bugs, then close it and shake it up to drown them.

And of course, make sure to get rid of anything else that could attract them. Cover the trash and change often. Clean the drains, etc.


----------



## TheBladedRoden

Most of them seem blasé to apple cider vinegar anymore


----------



## Sophie's Humble Servant

If it's gnats, you can use these things called sticky sticks, they are sticky yellow tape that the gnats are attracted to. They work really well. Unless you're talking about fruit flies?


----------



## MikeScone

I had a plague of fruit flies this year, too (and regular flies earlier in the summer). Very annoying, to say the least, and of course you can't spray when you've got a rabbit living there (or in the kitchen in general). 

The most effective thing I found was a variant on flypaper which is a transparent plastic, about 2"x4", gummed all over one side with a thin sticky strip on the other side. I got them at the local Agway. You put it on the bottom edge of a window pane where the flies tend to congregate, and it works great. I put some in the living room window, which gets the morning sun, and within a few days the strips were covered in flies and the problem was basically solved. Once you break the breeding cycle, unless there's an outside source of flies, you're OK. 

I also put one over a shallow dish with about 1/8" of graprefruit juice in the dish - the fruit flies were attracted by the juice, and many of the ones which didn't just drown in the juice got stuck to the plastic strip when they flew up from the surface.


----------



## whitelop

I had an infestation of gnats or fruit flies in the beginning of the summer. It was because the store I was getting fruit from, they were on the fruit. Anyway, I was killing like 50 a day. Nothing worked, I tried beer, ACV, red wine vinegar, white vinegar with dish soap, apple juice. All of it. It took me a solid month to get them out. But I did find out that if you mix a bunch of the vinegar's together they'll be more inclined to get that. They also really like coffee. So I would leave my cold coffee on the counter and get a bunch of them in my coffee cup. 

You're going to have to get rid of anything that they're attracted to. Wash and store your fruit in the fridge, or just throw it out. Don't leave fruit on the counters anymore, it needs to go into the fridge. And be sure that there are no bad potatoes anywhere, gnats love potatoes. Also make sure litter boxes and cages are cleaned regularly and the gnats don't have a chance to hatch their eggs in anything. You're just going to have to clean as best as you can. 

The sticky things sound good but make sure you put them up high and no where that your rabbit can get to them! 
Good luck, its horrible having gnats! I went nearly mad with the ones that I had.


----------



## MikeScone

whitelop said:


> The sticky things sound good but make sure you put them up high and no where that your rabbit can get to them!



That's the nice part of the transparent plastic ones - they go on window panes, so they're well above bunny level. You don't really see them until they get too covered in dead flies, at which point you want to throw them out anyway.


----------



## TheBladedRoden

Sophie's Humble Servant said:


> If it's gnats, you can use these things called sticky sticks, they are sticky yellow tape that the gnats are attracted to. They work really well. Unless you're talking about fruit flies?


Well hmm, here's what they look like.

Do you think they might be breeding in bunny poo?


----------



## whitelop

I don't know that those are gnats, they might actually be really small flies. But I am a little blind. 

I know that gnats will lay eggs almost anywhere, in a drain, in an unused ice maker. They could be laying eggs in the bunny poop, but if you're cleaning the cage regularly, you shouldn't be having such a problem. 
What kind of bedding are you using? I would try to scoop at least once a day and then dump the litter every other day or so. When I had a gnat problem, I used very minimal litter, scooped everyday and dumped all the litter every other day. 

But you're going to have to make sure that there isn't any fruit or food on your counters and that you don't have any dirty dishes and you take the trash out daily. That helps to control them.


----------



## Sophie's Humble Servant

Those are fruit flies from what I can see. They are buggers to get rid of. You have to remove all food items and sweet attractants as mentioned above. They will die off if you do that but as long as there's a food source they will keep breeding. I like to spray them directly with straight vinegar. It immobilizes them long enough to "wipe" them up.

I don't think they're attracted to bunny poo. I only ever see them in my kitchen but I suppose anything is possible.


----------



## majorv

They love to lay their eggs in the garbage disposal. That was the hardest part of getting rid of them. We had to keep spraying insect spray into the disposal. We also put a mixture of ACV & dish soap into glass bottles that have screw on lids with holes in them. We caught quite a few that way.


----------



## woahlookitsme

I bought salt shakers from Walmart. They were large enough to keep a good amount of ACV in them but the holes were small enough to not let the flys back out. I mixed ACV with a small bit of dish soap. The dish soap is what helps them not fly as well and the ACV is what attracts them. We had a bad infestation at my parents house and at my old apartment. I could easily catch 50 in one day in the shakers. The key is the soap and finding something that they can't easily fly back out of

The rabbit poop is what attracted the ones at my parent. The garbage disposal is what attracted them at my old apartment. Clean out litter boxes More often then you are now and I would pour rapid boiling water down the garbage disposal every couple
Of days. Doing these things helped get rid of them for us.

I had to study fruit flys in genetics lab and yes that is what you pictured. They are also known as gnats. Good luck


----------



## TheBladedRoden

Oy they just won't go away! They've become too smart for traps I think


----------

