How to Get Rid of Tiny Flies – Top Species Guide

Whether you’re dealing gnat infestation, with drain flies, fruit flies, or fungus gnats, we’ve got the solution for you to get rid of gnats. This article discusses how to get rid of gnats and tiny flies and prevent future infestations kill gnats from occurring. Let’s get started!

Tiny flies are annoying at a major nuisance at best and dangerous at worst. Promptly addressing the fruit fly situation before it becomes uncontrollable is essential for successful elimination kill fruit flies.

What Attract Fruit Flies?

To successfully treat an infestation of pests, you’ll first need to identify what various flying pests you’re dealing with. The most common types of tiny flies are as follows:

How to Get Rid of Tiny Flies – Fruit Flies

Fruit flies, also referred to as apple cider vinegar or flies of apple cider vinegar, are one rid of fruit flies and the most common species of house flies. If you’ve noticed tiny flies swarming your kitchen and eating your food out of seemingly nowhere, they’re likely fruit flies of apple cider vinegar.

These flies feed on over ripe fruit, rotting, or rotting produce, rotten fruit, decayed produce and fermented items like old wine can, liquor, red wine, and beer. They often breed in trash cans, garbage disposals, and mop buckets.

Dark-eyed fruit fly, the female fruit flies and red-eyed fruit fly, flies have black and red eyes, respectively. They both have striped bellies and an overall tan appearance. Their antennae have feather-like bristles decorating them.

Fruit flies are about an eighth of an inch in length. Their bodies are quite similar to common house flies but much smaller.

Fungus Gnats

Fungus gnats look similar to mosquitoes. They have dark, fragile bodies with long antennae, long legs, and transparent wings. Similar to fruit flies, adult fungus gnats grow to be about eight of an inch long, although some are less than sixteenth of an inch.

Fungus gnats are serious pests often seen in small swarms, circling atop potted plants and houseplants. Their larvae feed on moist organic matter plant roots and soil fungus.

Compared to other gnats, fungus gnats don’t bite, sting, or transmit disease. That being said, these gnats and their larvae do quite a lot of damage to seedlings and houseplants as they feed directly on the plant’s roots.

How to Get Rid of Tiny Flies – Drain Flies

Drain flies, also known as sink or sewer flies or, sewer flies, filter flies, or sewer gnats, are tiny flies with moth-like appearances. They have short, hairy bodies and wings covered in scales. Adult drain flies measure about an eighth of an inch.

These tiny flies usually live in very damp soil and dark conditions, so you’ll likely spot eggs or them on the kitchen floor, drain, unused garbage disposals leaking pipes, and areas with standing water. You can also find their eggs or them resting on ceilings or walls.

Drain flies don’t bite and don’t transmit any known pathogens. However, large infestations may trigger respiratory problems.

Dung Flies

Dung flies, as the name suggests, are often found breeding on organic waste and solid matter in advanced stages of life cycle of decay.

They thrive in and around sewage water, septic tanks, animal pens hot water, compost, garbage disposal and dirty kitchen floors sink drains. You can also find them around poorly cleaned or clogged drains and yards with standing water.

These flies are usually yellow and brown in color. They’re small—only about three-eighth of an inch long. Their appearance varies geographically; some have fuzzy golden legs while others don’t.

While dung flies don’t bite, they have the ability to carry potential illnesses and spread pathogens because of where they live.

How to Get Rid of Tiny Fruit Flies

This section highlights some of the best and effective ways to tackle these pests!

Option 1: Take Away Their Food Source

Like any other living creature, fruit flies need food to live. Eliminating their food source is the fastest and easiest way to get rid of these tiny flies.

If you’re dealing with fruit flies, throw out too-ripe and rotting food/or decaying fruits and produce. In the meantime, store all your fruits and vegetables in the fridge—don’t let them sit on your kitchen table. Take care to get get rid of fruit flies, food and juice spills as soon as they happen.

Then, replace the bags of garbage regularly your own kitchen counters and bins and wipe them down with heavy-duty cleaner or bleach. If your kitchen sink is clogged or dirty, take care to get rid of fruit in it straight away. Don’t let your dishes pile up, especially if they contain excess food.

If you’re dealing with drain flies, dung flies, and fungus gnats, thoroughly clean your home’s drain pipes, plumbing pipes, and drain fly traps. Use vinegar and dish soap, or drain cleaners to cleanse the trap and flush out the pipes.

Also, don’t forget to remove standing water from flower pots, tree stumps, birdbaths, water pools, etc. While you’re at it, take care of wet organic matter such as lawn clippings, manure, and poorly maintained compost.

Option 2: Lay an Apple Cider Vinegar Trap

If cleaning the problem areas didn’t completely eliminate the most female fruit flies, it’s time to lay a trap. Since fruit flies love damp, moist, damp areas, the easiest way to trap them is to create a controlled “livable” environment. You can do this with the following methods:

• In a glass, pour about half a cup of apple cider vinegar. Cover it with plastic wrap and gently poke small holes for the fruit flies to enter. Secure with a rubber band. The vinegar will drown the fruit flies, therefore killing them.

• Place an almost decaying fruit into a jar and place a paper cone with the narrow opening down to prevent them from escaping.
• Add six drops of dish soap into a small bowl of vinegar. Leave it out for several hours and wait until the mixture attracts tiny flies. This solution will instantly drown flies as soon as they land on the vinegar’s surface.

If the methods above don’t work, use fly traps or flycatchers.

Place these traps near the affected area and wait until they catch adult flies. Once the traps are filled with dead flying insects only, cover them up and throw them out. Repeat this method until the majority of flies have disappeared.

The best way to get rid of future infestation of fungus gnats is to spray the plant they’re infecting with hydrogen peroxide or neem oil as a soil drench. These two products are extremely toxic to fungus gnats and their larvae but are completely safe with plants.

Option 3: Use Force

If you’re out of options, use store-bought insect sprays and repellents. Spritz the product around the problem area and watch as tiny flies drop dead.

You can also try natural insect repellents and candles. They’re non-toxic, eco-friendly, and leave a pleasing botanical scent. Insect zappers are great solutions, too.

For those who’d rather go on an all-natural route, use essential oils such as lavender, peppermint, and eucalyptus. These oils deter almost every type of flying insect, including the flies mentioned in this post.

If you have a bit of time on your hands, you can also plant fly repellent herbs and plants such as basil, mint, bay laurel, catnip, wormwood, and chives.

Option 4: Call an Exterminator

If you’ve tried all the above methods and still haven’t managed to get rid of the flies in your house plants or home, leave it in the hands of a professional.

Calling an exterminator is the best solution for extreme infestations. You might have to leave your home for a few hours until the chemicals have receded, but hiring an exterminator is a sure-fire way to get rid of pesky flies once and for all.

How to Get Rid of Tiny Fruit Flies – Final Thoughts

Every household owner needs to know how to trap and get rid of tiny flies. While tiny fruit flies are relatively harmless pests, they pose sanitation hazards. Plus, they’re annoying!

Luckily, there are plenty of ways to eliminate and trap these pesky house flies, including getting rid of their food source, using food particles laying traps, and even calling a professional exterminator. Good luck!

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