they were dry for a week!!!

I went on a sultry vacation to Pittsburgh, PA, and Atlanta, GA last week (anybody miss me?!?!). I left the plant and fish sitter with fairly simple instructions. Among them included leaving some of my plants go dry (rather than be overwatered and rot themselves sadly).

There are now more fungus gnats than ever!! They are in just about everything... The most annoying site is the ivies in the bedroom .. they were all by themselves all week, door shut, not watered... why are they gnatty???

Rather than buying sand, or fighting with potatoes, is there a spray or something I can use?? Where might I find it???

HelP? I do know that over-watering often causes the little vermins, but, the ivies were dry all last week..... and meanwhile, it's entirely too hot this side of PA to leave them go dry and "naturally" fry the little suckers....

help help help! :)

Jennifer

"Knock-out Gnats" (Gnatrol) is a safe insecticide made specifically for fungus gnats. Itis sold by mailorder from Gardens Alive, but may be hard to find locally--it contains a strain of Bacillis thuringiensis, which infects and kills the larvae. Other strains of BR are commonly sold in stores for killing bud worms, cabbage moth larvae, etc. Maybe that would work. I have the brand called Safer Caterpillar Killer. The form of bacillis thuringiensis in it was originally sold as Dipel.

Having said all that, I haven't used either on gnats yet. But, I did spray my geraniums etc. with the Safer's product for bud worms twice this summer. It worked very well, and didn't effect the open flowers.

Eureka!

They might not be fungus gnats, exactly. I had my box fan in the bedroom window on "medium" all night, and this morning, found the same little off-white colored winged dingbats all over the screen (on the outside, probably sucked in from the fan's pull). Could they be some outdoor pest that found their way in from the tree outside my apartment? And again, would the safer's stuff kill whatever they are? I killed one at my living room computer screen the size of a baby fly... black little nasty thing. Otherwise, they were almost too small to be fungus gnats.... darned tree outside (wish I could cut it down.. darn little arbor town... drat!).

Still squashin' 'em.
Jennifer