apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

i always get those after going to farmers market! so now i get home, wash everything, and put all the veg in the frig in those green bio bags - problem solved! however, i still get a couple because I like to keep fresh strawberries out, but the amount of gnats are greatly reduced.

Warm weather?.. u sure? im freezin' here.

i use a bio spray that my mom brings me from Italy called K.O. you can even spray it directly on plants. Works for every single sucker!!!!!!!!! any kind any size.

i also have two extreme "BIO" products they're called furry cats!

troz: Us Southern Californian were just treated to an 80-85 degree sunny week. Spring has sprung in LA!

do you have to spray the WHOLE PLANT or just the soil in the pot?

I have a couple carnivorous plants around, and it seems to help. Plus they are just so cool looking. Pitcher plants and Venus Flytraps are my favorite. They can be pretty fickle, but as long as you water from the bottom (put the plant inside another container or bowl and fill that one a couple inches) and resist the urge to touch them, you should be fine.

Gregory... I am in los angeles as well...but today in my office in santa monica is friggin' winter again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hos has some carnivorous plants i was very close to buy.. but then AGAIN.. what if my cats eat the carnivorous plants?..mhmmm maybe not a good idea.

i ment OSH...mental dislexia.. sorry...

My husband and I also noticed that too. We thought it was my plants out on the balcony so we headed over to Home Depot for some help. We didn't want to hang those sticky fly traps anywhere. They suggest a perimeter spray and spray my plants.

I'll definitely give your mixture a shot since it's non chemical. I worry for my dogs.

troz: thanks for reminding me why I moved from Venice over to east of the 101 :D It's sunny and warm here.

im going to move to Hawaii...

My boyfriend and I had the same situation last summer. We treated the areas we thought they were breeding similar to what has been already suggested. For the living buggers, I would leave a little dish filled about 1/2" or so of red wine, which I was assume would work much like the beer. They'd be attracted to the sweetness and drown in the liquid. We were rid of them in a matter of days. Good luck.

I've only had an issue with gnats once... but I never saw them alive. I came home from work one day and went into my bathroom and the floor of the bathtub was covered in dead gnats... or a plague of locust, as I referred to it. I had no idea where they came from or why they all ended up dead in the bathtub. But after that, I never had a problem.

Ugh ... we are having the same issue here in Ventura County. We love to keep our doors and windows open but the gnats drive us gnatty!

Question: Where can one buy a Venus Flytrap? Are they difficult to care for?

Love the red wine idea!

Topsykret, I'm in VTA Cty, too. Where in the county are you? I'm near the Channel Islands Marina area.

Buy the sticky cards, the ones used to trap whitefly. The gnats aren't attracted to the yellow color the way a whitefly would be, but you can cut the stick cards (carefully) into shorter strips, an inch or two high. Line the inside rim of the pot with the strips - I usually tuck them down into the soil a quarter inch or so to hold them in place, and try not to let them actually touch the pot above the soil line because they'll make it all gummy.

The gnats generally buzz the surface of the soil in your houseplants, and eventually they'll bump into the sticky cards and die there. My apartment was infested with the things about two years ago, but after a couple of weeks of the sticky card treatment they were gone and haven't come back. It's a simple, green, chemical-free solution. Best of all, the sticky cards keep working as long as you leave them in your pots (or until they're totally coated with dead gnats, which happened to the card strips in one of my plants - yech!). The gnats have never come back.

After cutting the cards, clean any gummy residue off of your scissors using rubbing alcohol.

oh, gregory, you say that now...but come July you'll be pretty envious of troz ;) i can only say that because i livei n Highland Park and its ungodly hot in the summer. ugh.

i have little gnats too! such annoying little things...thanks for the tip! they also hang out on the upper walls of my bathroom, i assume because of the condensation that lingers after a shower...

kaanswfm, we are in Camarillo. Located in the community section of the haunted CSUCI campus.

i usually make a trap similar to the wasp trap, but using a recently emptied wine bottle, and a little inverted cone made of whatever paper i have lying around. Tape around the edges of the paper/bottle opening and voila! Gnat trap!

I had a terrible terrible gnat infestation that caused me to move!!! These disgusting little bugs were everywhere and I had fly strips hanging everywhere. It was so bad that I couldn't cook because they were literally flying in my food. You would sit on the couch and swat flies. My landlord blamed them on the litterbox, but it wasn't possible because at this point I was changing the litter daily. The pest control came out on three different occasions and said it was nasty pipes and the gnats were coming from all the pipes in the building to my apartment because I had cats, not that they were originating in my litterbox. Because of this, the landlord let me move out. After that the pest control man told me these were nastiest pipes and it was a problem throughout the community. To this day I can’t deal with those bugs and they immediately stress me out.

These fruit fly traps from Lee Valley work for gnats also. There are abit pricey but they work for a long time. They are harmless to the environment - they smell like vinegar.
http://www.leevalley.com/garden/page.aspx?c=2&p=44735&cat=2,51555&ap=2

I just ordered a Venus Flytrap from http://mycarnivore.com to help with my gnat/fly problem. Check them out, cute site and ship from Santa Barbara. I haven't decided what to name our new pet ... heehee!