As a rule, midges appear in the kitchen in the summer, which indicates acceptable conditions for their reproduction and existence. They move briskly around the kitchen in numerous flocks, getting into packages of cookies, settling on fruits or vegetables, etc. At the same time, a huge number of them can be seen near the trash can or among house plants.
What to do in this case to get rid of annoying midges? It turns out that in order to get rid of such an unpleasant neighborhood in the kitchen, it is enough to arm yourself with a number of tips and recommendations.
Reasons for the appearance of midges in the apartment
Drosophila, as these small midges are called, prefer to feed on rotten plant matter, which indicates the presence of fermentation processes. These processes release corresponding odors into the air, which attract these insects. The desired food for these little pests is rotten fruits or vegetables, fermented juice, compote or unfinished beer. They prefer to lay their eggs in leftover food.
In addition, tiny insects are attracted to the smell emanating from a clogged sink or from a wet rag that has not been washed for a long time. Therefore, deteriorating food debris combined with high humidity is the fertile environment in which such insects feel very comfortable.
Quite often, midges can be found in flower pots where tea leaves are rotting, which some housewives use to fertilize indoor plants. But they forget to remove it from the flowerpots on time, and in combination with abundant watering, often unjustified, ideal conditions are created for the existence and reproduction of such pests. Such conditions attract not only midges, but also other insects, on whose vital activity the well-being of indoor plants may depend.
Midge habitats
If you find midges in your apartment, you should not immediately destroy them. It is more advisable to monitor the insects and identify their places of greatest habitat. Midges prefer dirty and damp places. Therefore, before taking drastic measures to eliminate midges at home, it is necessary to restore order in the apartment. To do this, you need to carefully examine possible problem areas in the house:
- Inspect all kitchen cabinets and shelves where food supplies are stored. This way you can find what has gone bad and caused the spread of pests. Midges can live in cereals, onions and other spoiled foods that pest larvae feed on. You need to put all perishable foods in the refrigerator.
- Check the serviceability of sewer and water drains, as well as ventilation ducts.
- Change the water in the indoor aquarium and clean the pet’s cage, if there are any in the apartment.
- Ground gnats, such as fungus gnats, attack flower pots if the soil is overly wet. Other types of pests of indoor plants - scale insects and whiteflies - attack the green part of the flower.
Midges in the house
After general cleaning of the house using detergents and special products, you can use an additional device called a midge trap to consolidate the effect.
Types of midges
Two types of midges may appear in an apartment, especially in the kitchen or in flowerpots:
- Drosophila.
- Soil midges.
All types of midges live and reproduce under accompanying conditions, when there is an abundance of spoiled food and moisture. And yet, fruit flies or, as they are also called, fruit flies, appear more often in apartments. Quite often they are called “wine”.
Midge larvae are located in the fruit pulp and, under favorable conditions, they begin to emerge. As a rule, housewives are often surprised at how quickly these tiny creatures appear, as if out of nowhere. Therefore, the more midges in the kitchen, the greater the likelihood of their mass appearance.
Why in my kitchen?
This question is asked by everyone who is faced with an “army of conquerors” vying for a place in the house.
It would seem that the kitchen is perfectly clean, everything is washed regularly, garbage is thrown away, and there are not many leftovers of food, and midges appear out of nowhere. Why did they choose your house? This is not always due to uncleanliness. It’s just that the eggs that female fruit flies laid in fruits or vegetables that we bring home from the market or store, when placed in a warm, favorable environment, instantly hatch and multiply. Although the insect's life expectancy is short, due to active reproduction, within a week a large swarm meets us at the kitchen table, growing larger every day. The most favorable time for insect reproduction is, of course, summer, when due to the heat, food spoils much faster and is an excellent breeding ground.
Prevention of midges
What to do to prevent the invasion of new apartment inhabitants, so as not to think about how to get rid of midges in the kitchen?
- Try not to leave exposed foods on the surface, especially vegetables and fruits. Pack them in bags or containers and hide them in the refrigerator. Don't forget to throw away spoiled food immediately.
- This also applies to various sweets. Store honey, jams, and your favorite preserves in sealed jars or cover with paper and film.
- Wash the fruits brought home with hot water and dry well.
- Make sure that the bread is in a bag or bread bin, that there is no pile of unwashed dishes, and that the table is clean.
- Wash and ventilate the trash can often, wash foam sponges and rags after each use.
How dangerous are midges for humans?
Countless numbers of these tiny creatures move around the home at high speed. They are found either next to the trash can or next to indoor plants. If you leave a few grapes on the table, they will immediately appear above them. Many owners practice storing fruits and berries on the table, in fruit vases, which naturally attracts fruit flies, as the fruit quickly begins to deteriorate. At the same time, it is not difficult to imagine what they could leave on food if their route of movement intersected with a trash can, bathroom or toilet. The result of their vigorous vital activity may be contamination of fruits and other food products with various fungal or infectious diseases.
There is only one conclusion: it is necessary to take all measures to ensure that these little parasites no longer exist in the apartment. If you don’t fight them, they will multiply to such an extent that it will be very difficult to fight them. Despite this, the matter will have to be brought to its logical conclusion. Who would like to see swarms of insects moving around the kitchen or throughout the apartment? They won’t even let you eat in peace!
How to GET RID OF DROSOPHIL flies at home?
Appearance of a fruit fly
Tomato tops - a means to repel small flies
Drosophila are attracted to rotting leaves and moist substrate, so they often hover near pots of indoor plants. Insects can also be caused by contaminated soil. To prevent them from multiplying, it is necessary to calcine the soil in the oven. It is recommended to promptly remove rotten and fallen leaves and not to pour water into the ground.
Four ways to deal with fruit flies:
- Small insects cannot stand the pungent smell of tomato tops. To get rid of fruit flies, you can grow seedlings on window sills.
- Camphor is an effective remedy for small flies, since they cannot tolerate the smell of this product. To kill annoying flies, you need to pour camphor into a frying pan and heat it on the stove to maximum temperature until steam forms. Next, walk with it throughout the house so that the aroma spreads throughout all the rooms.
- Essential oils of basil, anise, and eucalyptus can repel fruit flies. To scent a room of 15 m², the product consumption will be 5 drops.
- At the dacha near the house, you can plant myrtle, eucalyptus, tansy or geranium to repel pests.
Now let's talk about how to get rid of flies in the kitchen. The first thing you need to do is to carefully sort out your food. First of all, this concerns stocks of vegetables and fruits. Spoiled fruits should be discarded immediately. It is recommended to store the rest in the refrigerator. Also, before getting rid of flies in the house in the kitchen, check the cereals and, if necessary, pour them into dry, sealed containers.
If small flies appear at home, how to get rid of them? You can use a vacuum cleaner, humidifier or ultrasonic repeller. The effectiveness of all these remedies is questionable, but it's up to you to decide. Experts recommend getting rid of flies in your apartment using traps. The classic option is adhesive tape.
- Liquid bait. To get rid of flies at home, pour juice, wine, beer or sweet syrup into a deep bowl or cup. Insects flock to the treat and simply drown. More sophisticated versions of such traps can be found on our website.
- Plastic bottle with bait. If you don’t know how to get rid of small flies in the kitchen, just take a one and a half liter bottle and poke a couple of dozen holes in it with an awl. Place a banana peel or other sweet product inside. In a day, the container will be literally filled with insects that have flown in to find a pleasant smell, but have not been able to find a way back. You can also use a sealed plastic bag to get rid of small flies at home. The principle is the same.
- Glass jar with bait. If there are small flies in the kitchen, you can get rid of them by constructing a simple structure from an empty transparent container with the remains of the product inside and a sheet of paper. From the latter you need to make a funnel, the wide part of which corresponds to the diameter of the neck of the jar, and the narrow part - no more than 1-2 cm.
If you're thinking about how to get rid of small flies in your apartment, but don't want to deal with all that sticky stuff, you can buy a trap at the store. Modern manufacturers offer a large selection of effective solutions in a wide range of price ranges.
We talked about what to do if small flies are found in the kitchen. How to get rid of insects that live in other rooms of the apartment? Let's start with the bathroom. If your sink is constantly swarming with midges, it means the pipes are clogged. For cleaning, you can use both folk remedies (for example, soda with vinegar and water) and store-bought preparations.
Now, how to get rid of small flies in an apartment if they have chosen pots with plants. First of all, you should stop watering for a while. Eggs and larvae develop only in moist soil. The soil has almost dried up, but are there still small flies in the apartment? You can get rid of them by using special chemicals.
Rules for getting rid of midges in an apartment
There are many ways to get rid of midges in an apartment, but first you should carefully analyze everything to find out the reason for the appearance of such insects in the kitchen. As a rule, they are attracted to food and moisture, which they need so much. If such paths for existence are blocked for the midge, then it will disappear on its own without wasting effort or money.
If there are a lot of insects, then you will have to help them so that they quickly leave the apartment alone. In this case, you can use primitive traps, special solutions or aerosols.
10 basic rules that will help get rid of annoying midges:
- First of all, you should put things in order in the kitchen by storing all food products in special containers, and some in the refrigerator.
- Make sure that there are no uneaten food items, as well as unfinished juices, tea, beer, etc. left on the dining table.
- Do some general cleaning, especially in the kitchen and bathroom. At the same time, it is necessary to thoroughly wipe or wash all cabinets and shelves on which food was stored, carefully removing their remains.
- Regularly and promptly remove garbage from the trash can, washing it afterwards with a cleaning solution.
- Wash all rags in the bathroom and kitchen, and also check the sewage system and water supply system for leaks.
- Use a “mole” to clean the sewer, depriving midges of an unpleasant but attractive smell for them.
- Clean kitchen furniture from dirt and grease, which also attracts such insects. We should also not forget about the area adjacent to the kitchen furniture.
- If you have ornamental plants in your apartment, you need to familiarize yourself with the features of their care. It is possible that they do not need abundant watering and they suffer from it. At the same time, it is better to replace the top ball of soil and not practice watering them with tea leaves, or remove the used tea leaves in a timely manner, preventing it from rotting.
- For greater efficiency, it is better to wash all flower pots, as well as their trays. In the future, dirt should not be allowed to accumulate here.
- Midges are also afraid of attentive housewives who carefully monitor all areas where such insects may appear, leaving not the slightest chance for them to have comfortable conditions.
How to remove midges at home?
So, you have found out where they come from, now you can begin the operation to remove midges from your apartment.
Traditional methods
Craftsmen have long come up with a lot of ways to remove midges from the kitchen. TOP 3 recipes for fruit flies:
- Horseradish. The bright smell of this root repels fruit flies - you can keep a few pieces on the table, in cabinets, or in the refrigerator.
- Smoke. All insects do not like it, which will help you in the fight against them. Place a few sprigs of juniper, incense, and fir cones in an iron bowl, set it on fire, open the window and close the doors to the kitchen. Unwanted guests will fly out the window.
- Geranium. Black and red midges will not live in an apartment with this smell - they are simply afraid of it.
How to get rid of flower aphids:
- Black pepper. Just sprinkle it on the soil and water the flowers as usual. Coal, garlic, and citrus zest have the same effect.
- Matches. Insert them with their heads down - after a while the sulfur will dissolve and kill the midges without harming the plant.
- Citramon. Tablet for 6 liters of water. After several waterings you will forget about your problem.
- Potassium permanganate. Watering with a weak solution helps kill eggs and larvae living in the soil.
- Laundry soap. One is not dangerous for flowers, but is considered one of the main helpers against pests. Water and spray with soapy water. Or simply grate the block and place it on top of the soil in pots.
Store products
If you don’t trust folk wisdom or don’t want to bother, buy special products in the store that will help you catch and destroy the reptiles. These could be: insect repellent aerosols; sticky tapes.
Insecticides are sprayed away from children and animals, so clear the kitchen before spraying. Then follow the instructions:
- Close the windows.
- Spray the product over the entire area.
- Leave the room, close the door.
- Open windows and doors after an hour and ventilate the room thoroughly.
This method kills any midges, so if there were a lot of them, the kitchen will need to be thoroughly washed. Poisoning midges with chemicals is an effective option, but it only works on adults. After a while, new ones will hatch and the procedure will have to be repeated.
Velcro tape is hung where children and animals cannot reach it, and adults should not touch it with their hands or heads.
Advice! If the kitchen is large or the midges have multiplied on an incredible scale, hang up a few sticky strips.
Instead of tape, you can make a homemade device:
- Cut a small piece of cardboard.
- Make a convenient hanger from any thread or rope.
- Smear the surface with honey (to attract insects).
- Hang it in any convenient place.
Midges are light and stick to honey no worse than to the sticky layer on commercial devices.
Store-bought remedies for flower midges can be in the form of:
- liquid solutions for watering and spraying;
- dry granules acting on the surface;
- sticks that stick into the ground.
The most active ones are considered to be “Mukhoed”, “Aktara”, “Grom-2”, “Bazudin”.
Traps
The most effective trap for midges in the kitchen works like a fishing “muzzle” - that is, midges fly into it and can no longer get out. Main conditions for effectiveness:
- bait in the form of sweet fruit, honey, aromatic moisture;
- a small hole that is not easy to get into.
You can make a trap for fruit gnats yourself using available materials:
- Take a vessel with high walls (jar, glass, bottle).
- Place or pour the midges' favorite delicacy into the bottom - fruit slice, jam, honey, apple cider vinegar or wine vinegar.
- Twist a paper bag with a narrow hole and seal it tightly in the container.
- After a few hours of work, when midges have already accumulated in the jar, fill them with soap and water (directly through a paper funnel).
- Wait 15-20 minutes for the insects to die and pour it into the toilet. Repeat the procedure if necessary.
Advice! The trap will work better if the paper is yellow or orange instead of white.
Traps made from other materials will have approximately the same effect:
- cling film with several small holes on top of the jar/glass;
- a plastic bottle cut in half with the neck inserted inside like a funnel.
The use of chemicals against midges
Is it worth fighting midges in the kitchen with chemical insect control products? Most likely not, but in the bathroom, they can be destroyed with the help of Dichlorvos. At the same time, care must be taken to ensure that the midges do not return, creating unfavorable conditions for them to live and reproduce. You must always remember that results can only be achieved through an integrated approach.
As a rule, chemicals are used when they cannot be dealt with using conventional methods. And so, it is better to use folk remedies, which are safe for everyone living in the apartment.
General rules for removing midges
A set of measures for removing midges from the kitchen is known to any housewife.
Let's summarize the procedure for solving an emerging problem in order to avoid missing any of the points:
You need to check your supplies: carefully sort through your supplies of fresh vegetables and fruits. Rotten fruits should be disposed of immediately, and spoiled fruits should be better used in the production of compote, jam, or dried and added to tea leaves.
Review your stocks of cereals and flour. If you find a place where midges are infested, fix the problem by thoroughly washing the surfaces with detergent or a solution of table vinegar. If the problem is in fruit stocks, rinse and dry unaffected fruits.
- a good solution would be to use a special mesh; it will help avoid sewer clogging and simplify the process of collecting and disposing of food waste;
- do not forget to promptly empty the sink of waste.
- cover the free soil with a flexible mesh (this will help protect the plant’s root system from insects, cats or rodents);
- You should not leave trays filled with water for a long time, this will create excess humidity, which will doubly harm the plant and promote the development of a fruit fly colony.
- fruit flies and other arthropods can fly to you from your neighbors; if there is no food, they will not survive, so you just need to follow the rules described above and keep the kitchen clean and tidy;
- For 100% absence of midges, place an insect net on the windows, and behind the ventilation grille, place the same one of the appropriate size.
Folk remedies for fighting midges in the kitchen
Based on natural ingredients and other substances, you can prepare effective formulations that can cope with the main task - getting rid of annoying insects. And although they are not as effective as chemical ones, their use is justified in most cases.
Remedies for midges in the kitchen:
- Fight with camphor oil. To do this, you need to take a frying pan and heat camphor oil in it until a strong smell and smoke appears. After this, go around the apartment, dousing it with smoke with a pungent odor. As a rule, after such a procedure, all the midges disappear somewhere.
- Midges, like many other insects, cannot tolerate the strong aromas of some plants, such as tansy, lavender, wormwood, etc. It is enough to place small bouquets of these plants in the kitchen and other rooms. This will help get rid of annoying midges. At the same time, you need to remember that a plant such as tansy should not fall into the hands of children.
- If you light a candle with a pine or spicy aroma and walk around the apartment, lingering a little in each room, then these little “terrorists” are unlikely to like it, and they will begin to look for other places to live.
- Essential oils of many plants repel midges and are very effective. These include citrus fruits, lavender, ylang-ylang, patchouli, etc. At the same time, it is enough to add a few drops to the container of the aroma lamp so that the midge can feel who is boss in the house.
- If you take a few pieces of peeled garlic and chop them, and then put them in lids and place them in places where insects like to accumulate, this will also help expel tiny pests from the apartment.
Homemade midge traps
Despite the fact that such traps can be made in about 15 minutes, their effectiveness cannot be compared with the costs, since it is obvious. In addition, you don’t have to deal with toxic substances or plants, spending time preparing or purchasing them, which also requires spending money.
How to make homemade traps:
- You can catch midges with a beer or wine bottle, filling it with fermented juice or leaving some beer in the bottle. You need to wait until a lot of insects have collected in the bottle, after which, with a sharp movement, the bottle is closed with a cork and thrown out into the street.
- You can catch it with a plastic bag filled with rotten fruits or vegetables. At the same time, the bag needs to be covered a little, leaving space so that midges can get to the food. After the entire swarm has flown into the bag, it must be closed with a quick movement and tied. All that remains is to throw the bag in the trash.
- The presence of plastic bottles allows you to make a super catchy trap. It is better to take a bottle with a capacity of 1.5-2 liters. After this, the upper conical part of the bottle is cut off and inserted back into the bottle with the narrow part with the neck. The result is a container with a funnel. Jam, beer, sweet syrup are poured into the bottom of the bottle, or rotten foods are placed. The midges will be able to get inside the bottle, but they will not be able to get out of it.
- A jar trap works on the same principle. Take a jar with a capacity of 0.5-1 liter and cover it with cling film. The top layer of the film must be stretched, after which small holes are made in the film, but sufficient for midges to crawl through. At the bottom of the jar you can place the same thing as at the bottom of a plastic bottle - slightly spoiled vegetables and fruits, as well as fermented juice or compote.
The easiest way to get rid of midges at home | Life hacker
How to get rid of house flies in the kitchen, depending on their origin
Tiny flies can swarm around fruits, onions, settle in cereals and flour, and live in sewers or flower pots. Depending on their habitat, you should select the appropriate product.
How to quickly get rid of fruit gnats
If a swarm has settled above a fruit basket, prepare a simple trap for it.
Remedy 12: syrup and soda
The trap will require a bottle. Sweet syrup, fruit soda or juice is poured into the bottom. Roll a piece of paper into a ball and insert it into the neck of the bottle. The flies will get inside through a tiny hole at the tip of the bag, and will not be able to get out back. The caught flies are doused with soapy water and poured into the sewer or onto the street. Insects hatch from eggs on day 8, so to completely destroy the colony you will have to update the trap for at least two weeks.
How to get rid of onion midge
If you do not remove the onion from the plastic bag, it will suffocate and begin to rot. The smell will certainly attract midges. How to remove onion midges from the kitchen?
Remedy 13: sawdust
Sort through all the onions, remove spoiled onions. Then put the onions in a box and cover with dry sawdust. This way, you will preserve root vegetables for a long time and get rid of insects that do not like the smell of sawdust.
How to get rid of insects in cereals
Insects in cereals are truly a disaster. It often happens like this: you open a box of porridge, expecting a healthy breakfast, and there are these small parasites with wings. Appetite disappears completely. Let's look at how to get rid of annoying midges in cereals in the kitchen.
Remedy 14: Freezer
Conduct a complete audit of all bulk products. It's a pity, but contaminated cereals will have to be thrown away. Some people advise calcining them in the oven or rinsing them with water, but you understand that such procedures do not improve the quality of the product. Don’t put off going to the trash container: while you are busy in the kitchen, small invaders may leave the selected boxes and move into clean ones.
You will do a good deed if you feed these cereals to the birds, you can put them in a sealed bag and go to the park after cleaning
Place all boxes that are not infested with parasites in the freezer. This procedure will kill the eggs. And be sure to have airtight boxes at home to store such products.
How to effectively get rid of midges in indoor flowers
Most often, the cause of insects in a flower pot is contaminated soil. If such a suspicion arises, it is better to replant the plants. How to get rid of midges in flowers at home?
Remedy 15: potassium permanganate
Water the soil in the pots with a weak solution of potassium permanganate. Do not overdo the concentration, otherwise you may destroy the flower.
Remedy 16: matches
The midge does not like the smell and taste of sulfur. Take a matchbox and stick the match heads into the ground. The bigger, the better. Feel free to water the flower and change matches as the sulfur dissolves.
Remedy 17: Citrus
Place lemon, orange, grapefruit or tangerine peels in the pot. The smell will repel midges.
Remedy 18: Ash
Sprinkle a thin layer of wood ash onto the soil in the pot. This will not only repel insects, but will also fertilize your plantings.
How to get rid of sewer midges forever
Sewer flies are very small - only a couple of millimeters. They are especially active closer to night, when people do not stop them from swarming around drainage holes. The most unpleasant thing is that such insects, after traveling through drains, can also sit on food in the kitchen. So it is imperative to deal with such unwanted guests.
Remedy 19: boiling water
To kill eggs and larvae in drains, pour boiling water over them. You will need at least 4 liters of hot liquid. To be more confident in the results, after spilling, add some cleaning chemical to the drain, for example, “Mole”.
Tool 20: fly swatter
Everything ingenious is simple. In the end, the most common way to get rid of small midges in the kitchen is to physically destroy them. Arm yourself with a fly swatter or just a rolled up newspaper - and go into battle!
Preventive actions
To reduce the risk of such insects appearing in your apartment, it is enough to use a number of tips. For example:
- Monitor the proper sanitary condition of the kitchen and the apartment as a whole.
- Do not leave leftover fruits or vegetables on the dinner table.
- Store vegetables and fruits exclusively in the refrigerator.
- Immediately throw away rotten fruits and vegetables, not in the trash, but immediately outside.
- Keep dishwashing sinks and washbasins in the bathroom clean.
- Care for indoor plants correctly, avoiding overwatering in pots, and also often removing the top layer, replacing it with a fresh one.
- If numerous flocks appear in the kitchen or apartment, immediately analyze the reasons for their appearance and then solve the problems.
If you carefully study the information presented in this text, then getting rid of midges in the kitchen is not at all a difficult task. And it is not necessary to immediately resort to the use of chemical control agents, especially since their use in the kitchen is generally undesirable. It is enough to get by with folk methods of struggle, making primitive but effective traps for this. But the most important thing is to keep your home clean, leaving no chance for the existence of many pests that are not as harmless as this midge.
Midges often appear in kitchens in apartments or private houses in the summer. As a rule, this happens due to the carelessness of some housewives who provide such an opportunity for insects.
Ways to get rid of little black midges
To get rid of annoying insects, it is not necessary to use expensive products, since there are more economical ways to deal with them.
Fighting fruit flies
Types of homemade traps for small flies:
- Pour apple cider vinegar into a deep plate (3-4 cm high), add a couple of drops of liquid dishwashing detergent, 40-50 ml of water and mix thoroughly. Then cover the container with the contents with cling film and make small holes in it with a toothpick at a distance of 1-2 cm. Small flies will sense the acidic environment and climb through the holes under the film. Once trapped, they will not be able to get out.
- Place several pieces of rotten fruit (apple, banana) in a large glass or beer glass and leave it like that in a room where there are fruit flies. When a sufficient number of fruit flies have collected in the container, you need to fill it with water and pour it into the sink or toilet. This method of dealing with annoying guests is very labor-intensive, since the event has to be repeated several times, but it is effective.
- In a room where insects live, you can leave a bottle of beer with a small amount of drink left at the bottom overnight. In the morning a large number of flies will gather in it.
- Place a plastic cup with bait on the table, which can be juice or pieces of fruit, cover it with cling film, and make several holes in it with a toothpick or a needle. Insects will be attracted to the bait, and once they fly into the trap, they will no longer be able to get out.
- A decoction of cloves will help get rid of small flies. To prepare it, you need to pour 250 ml of water into a container, add 5 g of flowers, boil and leave in the room. The strong smell of the product will force insects to leave the house.
- To make this trap, you need to make a cone from a sheet of paper and place the narrow side in a glass jar with bait. This could be juice, pieces of rotten fruit, for example, banana, peach, apple. Next, you need to glue the paper funnel to the neck of the container. The result of a homemade trap will be noticeable within a day.
Fly Trap with Apple Cider Vinegar and Detergent
Plastic cup with fly bait
Clove decoction
Fly trap with bait and paper cone
To combat fruit flies, not only homemade traps are used. Many chemical preparations have been developed, and essential oils of plant crops also work well.
Popular remedies for small flies:
- The substrate of indoor plants is a favorable environment for the larvae of small insects. To detect them, you need to very carefully dig up the soil without damaging the root system of home crops. If small worms are found, you need to change the soil or use insecticides such as Actellik, Fitoverm and others.
- If there are flies in the sink, you can get rid of them in two ways. The first is to rinse off the surface with hot water. The second is to use one of the following means: Mr. Muscle, Domestos, Mole, Floop and others.
- To destroy fruit flies, you can resort to aerosols from well-known brands, for example: Dichlorvos, Raid, Raptor, Combat. They help to quickly and effectively deal with flying insects indoors. Before processing the room, you must remove all food and remove people and pets. After spraying the product, you need to wash your hands and wash your face, and after a while ventilate the room.
- Small flies do not like the smells of eucalyptus, anise, and basil. To scare them away, you can use an aroma lamp and essential oils. The operating principle of the device is quite simple. A classic aroma lamp consists of two parts: a container for water and a body where the candle is installed. Oil is added to water. As a result of heating, it evaporates and fills the room with a smell hated by flies. The optimal product consumption is 5 drops per 15 m² of area.
- Electric fumigators with plates are an excellent means of repelling flies. It is enough to plug the device into a 220 V network and wait until all the insects die.
- An effective way to get rid of fruit flies is to hang sticky tape. One or more traps should be placed in areas where pests are concentrated. Fruit flies are attracted to the substance with which the surface of the tapes is treated. Traps should be changed as they become full of insects.
- Drosophila cannot tolerate the smell of camphor. The way to use it is to pour the product into a frying pan and heat it to maximum temperature, or rather until steam forms. Then walk with it through all the rooms so that the aroma spreads evenly throughout the house.
Insecticide Actellik
Mole remedy
Dichlorvos
Aroma lamp with essential oil
Electric fumigator
Duct tape
Camphor
Currently, there are a large number of means and methods to combat fruit flies. But the most important thing is to keep the house clean to minimize the likelihood of uninvited guests. If you cannot cope with fruit flies on your own, you can turn to the sanitary service for help.
We suggest you read: What does a house cricket eat?
Drosophila
Drosophila are small insects of the fruit fly family. Their small size, ease of breeding, and short life cycle have made Drosophila indispensable as an object of study for geneticists. Drosophila also has popular names: vinegar fly, wine fly, fruit fly.
These insects live next to humans because here they find food for themselves, which is rotten berries, fruits, and sour juices.
The length of the insect is 1.5–3 mm, the wings are longer than the body.
Drosophila size 1.5–3 mm
The eyes are red, and the insect itself is yellow-brown in color.
Drosoophila has a yellow-brown color
Drosophila reproduce very quickly. In just 10 days, development from egg to adult occurs. The very next day after emerging from the pupa, the Drosophila lays eggs, and during its life it can lay up to 2 thousand eggs. With such a rate of reproduction, fruit flies quickly conquer space in the apartment, and although they are quite harmless and do not bite, confused residents are urgently looking for effective ways to get rid of them.
It is believed that fruit flies are not carriers of diseases, but the very flickering of these flies before the eyes is unpleasant.
Where do fruit flies come from? They cannot fly from afar, because these midges fly no more than 180 meters per day. The most common reason for the appearance of fruit flies, biologists say, is fruits and vegetables brought home that already contain eggs of these insects. As soon as the fruit begins to deteriorate and rot, larvae appear from the eggs, and flies from the larvae.
Drosophila love rotten fruit
Drosophila can be brought into the house with soil for planting indoor plants. Adult flies emerge from eggs and larvae in the ground. They multiply especially actively when the flowers are waterlogged and the soil is acidic.
Theoretically, you can get rid of fruit flies by simply doing a thorough cleaning and depriving them of food, but this can take a long time.
Whiteflies
Microscopic white insects on indoor flowers are malicious plant pests, whiteflies.
Tiny whitefly - a malicious pest of indoor plants
They can arrive with a new indoor flower or fly in from the street. These small insects lay eggs on the underside of leaves. Hatched whiteflies suck out the juice and leave behind a sugary secretion. The leaves of the plant become deformed and then fall off along with the flower buds.
Whitefly destroys indoor plants
Pests reproduce extremely quickly and are extremely tenacious. If you do not start fighting whiteflies in time, indoor flowers will die. It especially damages begonia, fuchsia, and balsam.
Adult sciarids (flower midge or fungus gnat or soil gnat) are black insects about 3–4 mm long.
Sciarid flower midge
They lay eggs among the roots of plants. The mosquitoes themselves do not cause much harm, but their larvae, which are worms up to 5 mm long, are very dangerous for flowers. The larvae eat the roots of the plant, causing it to die.
Sciarid larvae eat plant roots
Flower midges enter a house with soil contaminated with larvae. They might even fly out the window. These insects are often found in damp basements of houses, and from there they make their way through the ventilation. Midges may be interested in food waste, rotten fruits and vegetables.
Sciarides do not bite, but they must be fought, otherwise they will destroy all indoor flowers.
Butterflies
Butterflies (sewer flies) are small insects up to 2 mm long.
Sewer fly
The larvae of these insects and pupae live in sewer pipes and feed on decaying organic matter. Adults have wings and a body covered with hairs. One butterfly clutch contains up to a hundred eggs. There can be a lot of infection on the legs of these nasty insects. In addition, there are known cases of allergies to butterflies.
The butterflies themselves can also be food for spiders and other large insects that will appear in the house if the sewer fly is not exterminated.
There are also special means that can be used to combat fruit flies, as well as other insects.
You can use some kind of insecticide in the form of an aerosol or fly strips, but this is not advisable in the kitchen where the food is located. It is better to use sticky traps and tape.
Insecticide in aerosol - a remedy for fruit flies
You can quickly destroy small flies in your home using insecticides.
Five ways to remove fruit flies indoors:
- The use of aerosols such as Raid, Raptor, Dichlorvos, Combat and others shows good results in the fight against fruit flies indoors. When processing, there should be no pets or people in the room, and food should also be removed. After the procedure, you must wash your hands thoroughly with soap, and after the time specified in the instructions, open the window to ventilate the room.
- The soil of indoor plants is a suitable environment where fruit flies can reproduce. To detect the larvae, you need to dig up the soil mixture with a toothpick or a small spatula without disturbing the integrity of the root system. If there are worms in it, you can use the insecticides Fitoverm, Actellik to destroy them, or simply transplant the plants into a new substrate.
- To deal with fruit flies living in the kitchen sink, you can pour boiling water over it or add Mole, Mister Muscle or Domestos.
- An effective remedy for flies is a fumigator with a plate treated with toxic substances. The device is very simple to operate; just plug it into the electrical network and wait for the flies to die.
- To remove fruit flies, you can hang sticky tape in the kitchen. Place the trap in a place where flies accumulate.
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Fruit fly bait trap