Why are all these tiny flies in my house?

[asblackasyoursoul]

So for the last few days I’ve noticed a lot of these wee flies in the house. I’m finding them dead in glasses of juice, on the windows etc and constantly around my face! I don’t know if they are fruit flies? They’re tiny black ones and quite slow flying I would say.
There isn’t any fruit or any food out in the open, this may be a total non issue but I’ve just been noticing them around a lot recently and they are so irritating!

Also sorry for the not great picture - that is a zoomed in one!

They could be fungus gnats living in the soil of a houseplant. They are annoying little buggers.

Every time I open the door they seem to come in as I notice them later.

I've been getting similar but in the loo room and bathroom

Do you have a real Christmas tree?

My friend's house was covered in those after she put it up.

They are sciarid flies. They breed in moist houseplant compost. Spray the top of the compost with Roseclear every two or three weeks to kill off the larvae in the compost. They should be gone after a few months.

Fungus gnats. Pain in the bum but you can eradicate!

only water any plants from the bottom - these pests live in the top cm of soil. You need to let that 1cm dry to an absolute crisp. They will then die.

don’t water any plants at all for 2 weeks. They’ll be fine.

if all else fails you can buy nematodes for house plant gnats (Amazon sell them) - you water them in and they do their miraculous job of invading and killing the gnats - no nasty pesticides involved.

Oh no, it does sound like they are from my plants! I have a large plant in the living room and another one in the bathroom ☹️ I will do the trick of watering them from the bottom rather than the top.
I don’t have a real Christmas tree either. Thank you for the advice, they are so irritating!

I’ve had those flies recently too, thought it was something to do with the weather 😅

My rule of thumb is that if they're desperate to get up my nostrils, they're fungus gnats (or one of the many other names for them) rather than fruit flies.

Just threw away a houseplant infested with these yesterday. Is it the time of year for them? Never noticed the blighters before.

Yeah I'm a bit confused too actually as I have had these plants for over a year and never noticed these little blighters. As a previous poster said, they are most certainly a kind of fly that is trying to get up my nose! Constantly around my face and dropping dead in drinks etc, so annoying!!! Just wondered where they were all coming from as we don't usually have issues with flies.

Actually, until you manage to eradicate them, it's quite satisfying to suck them up with the vacuum extension hose as they fly around.

I put a layer of grit on the top of the soil which seems to have worked well.

Have you recently purchased any live herbs from the supermarket into your house? I've had infested live potted herbs from a Tesco delivery before. Ended up infesting 3 other plants in the kitchen and I had to toss them all.

I've also had an infestation of these in my bathroom sink drain before when it was quite grubby and filled with my hair. No idea how they got in there but I kept finding them flying around my bedroom. A bit of bleach and a good cleaning got rid of them