teeny tiny little fly infestation in my apt! help!
does anyone know what this could be? i just started noticing them. i noticed one or two but then after i killed two i realized some were sitting up way high on the walls just staring down at me! ive never seen these kinds of flies before. they are about the size of fruit flies,…
does anyone know what this could be? i just started noticing them. i noticed one or two but then after i killed two i realized some were sitting up way high on the walls just staring down at me! ive never seen these kinds of flies before. they are about the size of fruit flies, but i dont think they could be fruit flies we don’t keep fruit in our apartment.
they also don’t try to shoo away and escape much and when im laying down and the lights are on one or two of them will linger and buzz around my head, it’s seriously disgusting. i also have my window wide open, two windows… the heat is turned off. im trying to freeze them out of my room but they won’t leave. i have no idea where they are coming from. my windows are on an alleyway and im on the ground floor. no food establishments around either.
i keep my bedroom very clean and the rest of the apartment is clean too. we do have two dogs but these flies are never near the dogs so they cant be fleas. plus they are dark black and much bigger than fleas.
also i dont want to get a fogger because im not sure if that is necessary yet and i dont know if that would be dangerous for the dogs.
-rob
I have had these pesky things to. I asked an exterminator and he told me how to get rid of them. They breed in the sink and tub drains so you have to pour a Liquid Gel drain opener into all your drains. Then once a week pour some bleach in your drains. If you still see them, use the liquid gel again. (Please do not pour in the drain opener and bleach at or close to the same day or time – you will generate deadly chlorine gas – this happened at an office I worked in once and we had to evacuate.)
I see them mostly after I have bananas in the house. The exterminator called them “drain flies” but I think they are related to fruit flies.
If you have open liquor bottles around, even empty ones, you will get fruit flies. If you wash the liquor bottles with soap and water, they will go away.
My folks get them in Virginia quite a bit and my mom does the beer/wine trap. I can tell you from experience it will work.
whoops—I have that bass ackwards. You put the wide end up over the glass and let it rest on top of the glass with the small end a few inches above the surface of the vinegar.
My father in law showed me how to make a trap similar to what PH family is describing above. We used vinegar instead of wine. We put the vinegar in a tumbler type glass and made a cone out of cardboard that we mounted (little side up) over the glass with tape. The idea is that they fly in attracted by the vinegar and then they can’t get out and they drown. Has worked several times for me with fruit flies.
thanks for the advice.. im going to try the beer trap. i hope these gnats/fruitflies aren’t the snobby types and don’t care if it’s cheap malt liquor or bud. hahah.
-r
We were infested with fruit flies and a wine/beer trap worked. We put some wine in a bowl and covered it tightly with saran wrap and made a few small holes –very small, just the tip of a thin bladed knife–and left it on the counter for a few days.
I had a similar problem a few weeks ago, and am similarly clean.
I did a thorough check and found some onions that I must have purchased months ago rotting in a drawer, covered with plastic bags.
They’re there to eat something. Clean until you find out what it is and they’ll go away.
okay you were right about this… might try this. found it on the web.
Make a beer trap. Pour a couple of ounces of beer in a jar. Make a funnel out of paper and tape it to the jar so that the small end is an inch or two above the beer. Be sure the sides are tight against the mouth of the jar. The gnats will check in but they won’t check out!!
they might be fungus gnats. i think they came out of my closet. i had spilled something a few weeks ago then let the towel dry up on a rack inside my closet and i think i stupidly closed the door to the closet. it must be that. thanks!
-rob