OT - fruit flies/gnats - ugh

My gut and its craziness has taken a back seat lately. July 4th we had corn on the grill and also had fresh bing cherries on hand. One or both brought gnats into our home. I searched online on what to do but wish I had been very, very aggressive from day one. Initially I put out the cider vinegar/dawn dish soap mixture and caught many that way. But didn't realize they had laid eggs in our kitchen/garbage disposal (which we don't use) and other sink drains. Lovely. My husband saw a few coming out of a bathroom sink.

Long story short, I am on day 4 now of flushing out all the drains in our house (even shower and tub drains), with baking soda, white vinegar and a large amount of boiling water. Apparently you should clean out your drains like this for 7 days straight.

Anyone else have this happen to their house this summer? I have so little fresh produce on hand right now but what we have is in the fridge. We are using a small garbage can with lid in the kitchen, I empty it every hour or so. We are washing everything that food comes in (wrappers, yogurt cups, etc.).

These things are nasty. Apparently we're supposed to scour our kitchen sinks, fill with cold water and one cup of vinegar, soaking all fresh produce for 10 minutes. Ggnat eggs are on the outside of produce, ewwww!

Thanks for letting me rant a bit. Has my gut been "normal" through out this episode? Oh no, it's been acting up, I'm cleaning the toilet I use several times a day, why risk more gnats (nasty creatures).

Thank you so much for your reply, imagardener2. The only thing I could think of with the toilet seat was maybe I hadn't been as neat as I thought I was, so that's why I started cleaning the bathroom I used, daily. We are taking our garbage out in small bundles, using a bathroom size can with lid (we have a lab too and he loves to get into garbage cans). I'm 2/3 the way thru flushing out all our drains again today and I'm tired, you have to lug boiling water up a flight of stairs.

I would probably pour bleach down the drain regularly for a while. I can't imagine they would live through that. I also have Lye and that's pretty toxic. That plus bleach would have to do the trick

Hi all - well I do think all that we're doing - combined - is getting rid of them. I have flushed all drains for 4 days now and plan to do it 3 more times, one link I went to suggested a full week of flushing the drains (actually the trap area of your sink's plumbing). I have read pros and cons to bleach in doing this, sometimes it's deemed harsh on pipes. So for now I'm sticking with baking soda, vinegar followed quickly with scalding water. I have a system now, I use 3 of my Farberware pots and my tea kettle, when two are ready with boiling water, I flush a sink, when I'm done, the next two pans/pots are boiling. The eggs they lay are truly hard to eliminate with just a day or two of removing food and their food sources in particular, the repeated flushing of drains eventually gets all the eggs.

I can't believe this happened to us. Next time I buy corn in the husk I will shuck the ears out in the yard and from there, I don't know where I'll dispose of the husks, there's a park nearby, maybe the dog and I will take a walk after that chore. :)

Haven't had a banana in days and I need one. I joked I'm going to the store tomorrow and eating one in my car, disposing of the peel in the garbage can at the grocery.

When I tell people this story, right away they mention a relative or coworker who is struggling with this too.

Just watch your fresh produce and don't leave food out in your kitchen. I am washing everything that goes in our garbage can too - frozen fruit bar wrappers - washed, candy bar wrappers - washed. I am not the one eating all of this, my family members are but now they know - oh that's right mom's freaking out washing all the garbage now too. lol