Tiny little annoying flies

[dontstopmenow]

Does anyone know how to get rid of tiny little flies that I suspect live in one of the house plants but get everywhere? I seem to squash one every 5 minutes.

[teaandcakeplease]

My mum swears by spraying old washing up water at "said plant" to kill things?

[teaandcakeplease]

LOL

[Washersaurus]

Re-pot your plants or chuck them as someone else suggested.

I too am ashamed to admit that we suffer with this in the kitchen from our compost bowl ...well the compost bin is a loooong way up our garden in the chickens' garden.

[midnightexpress]

They are fungus gnats. They like moisture, so try not to water your plants too often - wait till they are dry before watering to try and break the reproductive cycle. We were plagued by them, but this seems to have got rid of them.

[Washersaurus]

Eurgh I think I prefer to call them fruit flies...fungus gnats

[Haggisfish]

Yep, they are usually found on distressed plants - I often find supermarket herbs that are past their best become infested with these. I just throw plants out after a while. They also like old fruit and veg, and browning bananas in particular atracts them.

[catsdontscreetch]

The only cure I know (thanks Mum!)is to sprinkle surface of compost with ant powder. To stop little (or big fingers) getting iin the powder you then 'dress' the pot with something, we use the teeny pebbles you get for fish tanks. And then water from below as otherwise the powder gets washed away.

It's a pain but it works.

[dontstopmenow]

Wow - you are all fab! That was my first ever post - thanks for coming back to me. I did throw one plant away this morning in horror but now I know they are called fungus gnats (bleurgh) I will probably be unable to sleep before they are all out there! However, I will try the ant powder idea first as this sounds rather less extreme. Thank you all!