At one point or another we all have to deal with the headache of a pest known as gnats, or fruit flies. They are attracted to any sweet foods or food particles that might be around. It seems like one day you have a few gnats, then they get the word out to the rest of them, and you spend the next week or so trying get rid of all of your uninvited house guests. Trying to kill them with a fly swatter or something will get a few, but more will hatch before you get all of them. You need to treat not only the ones that are flying around your house, but also where they might have laid eggs. Here are a couple different ways you can get rid of all of them.
First off, let's take care of the fully grown gnats. I know of two projects that you could try to take care of them. One project is to take a 2 or 3 liter soda bottle, vinegar, sugar, and water. Cut the top off of the bottle about 2 inches down from the top and set it aside. Put 1/2 cup each of vinegar and white sugar in the bottle and fill it half way with water. Make sure it doesn't touch the top when you take the cap off, invert it and put it in the top of the bottle. (If it falls into the bottle, you can use duct tape to hold it up.) Set these traps in rooms where you notice the gnats and they will be drawn to it because of the sweetness of the sugar and the odor of the vinegar.
There are a couple of variations to this that might suit your needs better. If you don't have a large bottle, you can always do the same thing with a smaller bottle. You will want to reduce your sugar and vinegar to 1 to 2 tablespoons of each though. This option is much more easily concealed if you don't want to broadcast that you have gnats to everyone that comes in your home.
Another variation is to use a cup, mason jar, or even a bowl instead of the soda bottle. Use the same amounts of sugar, vinegar, and water in your container, only in place of the bottle top, use plastic wrap. cut a piece of plastic wrap big enough to completely cover the opening of your container, use a rubber band, hair tie, scotch (or other kind) tape, or string of some sort to secure the plastic wrap and make sure the gnats don't get back out once they are in the jar. Once you have secured the plastic wrap, use a knife to make about half a dozen small punctures in the plastic wrap that are just big enough that the gnats can crawl in, but not back out. (This may take some perfecting, but it makes all the difference.)
Within a couple hours you will begin to notice some little gnats crawling around inside the container or floating in the water mixture. Change it out every couple of days to keep it fresh, and leave it out until you don't notice any more gnats flying around.
To treat the areas where the gnats are most likely laying their eggs, you could wipe down all of your food surfaces with either vinegar or bleach. Also make sure to sweep up any crumbs and food particles every day. There are two treatments that I know of to treat your sink drains. Two factors that will determine which one is best for you are the smell and which products you have. First remedy is to pour some baking soda down your drains followed by a cup of vinegar poured slowly afterward. If you still have baking soda in the drain that hasn't dissolved, you can always add more vinegar. The other option is to pour one cup of bleach slowly down the drain. Either option you use, don't use the drain for at least 2 hours afterward.
Gnats are drawn to fresh foods, so if you like to keep fresh food out in your kitchen, such as bananas or other fruits or even bread, make sure that you rinse any fruits or vegetables thoroughly before setting them out and put the food in the fridge or toss it out long before it starts to go bad, this will deter the gnats from coming back. These are some old fashioned remedies for pesky gnats that are tried and true.
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