Homemade Gnat Trap: How To Make A Gnat Trap

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Gnats are more a nuisance than a hazard. They don’t carry diseases or deliver painful bites, but they can be annoying in your home. In tropical settings, they tend to show up indoors during heavy, lengthy rainfall.

In other settings, fungus gnats may occupy the space around your houseplants all through the winter. So what can you do about gnats in your home? This article shares ideas to help you create homemade gnat traps. Read on to learn more.

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Gnat Traps Are Easy To Make At Home And Safe To Have Around

Fungus gnats, fruit flies, and drain flies can all be dealt with quickly and easily using some common household products.

Here are 10 simple yet effective ideas for making gnat traps at home and getting rid of gnats around plants

Save Your Spice Bottles!

Spice bottles that have shaker tops are perfect for making gnat traps. Gnats fly in through the small holes in the shaker tops and cannot make their way out again. 



The simplest bait to lure them in is pure apple cider vinegar (ACV). Just pour a couple of fingers into the bottom of the bottle and set it in an area frequented by gnats. 

You will find the vinegar full of drowned gnats within a day or two. Then you can just dump out the vinegar, rinse the bottle and start again. More on using vinegar to control fungus gnats.

This idea is my personal favorite. 

Related: Cinnamon on plants for gnats: Learn the organic approach to gnat-free your garden!

Use Small Cups, Jars, Or Jar Lids.

If you don’t have bottles with shaker tops, add a bit of dish soap to the ACV and pour it into a small jar, old cup, or jar lid.

When the gnats land on the ACV, they cannot leave because adding dish soap will hold them in place. It’s also a bit toxic to them. 

Use an old soda bottle. You can pour an inch of any of the liquids mentioned above into the bottom of an old soda bottle. 

This works on the same principle as the shaker bottle lids. The gnats go through the small opening at the top of the bottle, make their way to the tasty vinegar mixture at the bottom, and then cannot make their way back out again. 

Use ACV Or Wine Vinegar.

Does it have to be ACV? If you’re going to use vinegar at all, use ACV or wine vinegar, but ACV is best. It smells like food to gnats and is very attractive to them. 

Plain white vinegar will not attract them; however, if it’s all you have, you can sweeten it with sugar to make it more attractive. 

Then, add it at a rate of three tablespoonfuls of sugar per quarter cup of vinegar.

Use Red Wine

Gnats also like red wine! If you don’t have vinegar and don’t mind sharing your wine with the gnats and fruit flies, you can use any of the ideas above using red wine. By the way – Are Fruit Flies and Gnats the Same?

Make Harmless Sticky Cards.

Glue traps are dangerous because they catch good and bad bugs and unintended victims such as lizards, small birds, etc. Instead, you can make safe sticky cards that specifically target gnats. 

Get some bright yellow index cards (or other pliable material, such as a bright yellow plastic container lid). 

Affix the yellow surface to sturdy support (e.g., pencil, chopstick, stick, etc.) 

Spread the yellow surface with honey and poke the stick into the soil surrounding plants plagued by fungus gnats. 

They’ll be attracted to the yellow color and the sweet honey and will get stuck when they land. 

Add Sugar

Do you have to add sugar? You can add sugar to ACV, wine vinegar, white vinegar, or wine if you want to, but the only one that really needs it is white vinegar. 

Gnats are naturally attracted to other liquids. 

Add Dish Soap

Do you have to add dish soap? You can add dish soap to ACV, wine vinegar, white vinegar, or wine if you want to, but in this writer’s personal experience, it is unnecessary.

Even if you just use ACV alone, the gnats tend to get stuck and drown in it in great numbers. The theory is that dish soap increases that effect, and this may be the case. 

How much dish soap should you add to gnat bait? Generally speaking, two or three drops of dish soap in each trap should do the trick. 

Build Gnat Traps

Can you build a better gnat trap? If you are the sort of person who likes to construct gizmos and gadgets, you can certainly get creative when building your gnat traps. 

For example, you might want to cut the top third off a soda bottle, put an inch of bait solution in the bottom and then put the top third back on upside down so that it forms a funnel. 

This might baffle the gnats, even more when they try to escape!

Killing Gnats with Diatomaceous Earth

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