Drain Flies in Basement
Drain flies are a fuzzy type of tiny insects living in moist areas and feeding on organic materials. They are mostly circulating around kitchen and bathroom areas of our homes, as they simply love spending their lives into pipes. However, it is not unusual to have drain flies in basements, either.
If you are suspecting that this is the case in your home these days, let us sort that out together. First, it is necessary to confirm if those are sewer flies that you see around your basement. If this is so, we will then get further with the ways of how to get rid of them. If you decide to get rid of them yourself, obviously.
Small Flies in Basement
Heading to your basement and realizing there are several tiny flies around it is probably not the most pleasant start of the day. However, there is no need to panic, but to confirm which flies are these in the first place.
Sewer flies are actually really similar to moths because of the fuzzy details across their wings. They are extremely small and often more active during the night. These tiny creatures are quite easy to recognize due to their poor flying capacity. So, if you spot several small black flies in your basement, and they fit the description, you are certainly facing sewer flies.
Now, it is up to you to decide whether you wish to share your home with them or not. Sewer flies love feeding with organic materials that we leave around our homes, but they do not attack people, or pets even. A fly has approximately twenty hours of a lifespan once it gets to the adult phase, but it will lay so many eggs. If one decides not to do anything about sewer flies in the basement, there will most likely be hundreds or thousands annoying little residents very soon.
To know if your issue is evolving into an infestation or not, it is crucially important to find out on what they feed. Even if they prefer plumbing drains and sewerages due to the abondance of food sources in there, they can find yummy meals almost anywhere. Including basements. Check your floors for any organic material left (a dead mice or some forgotten food can be a good reason for flies to move in). If you are sure there is nothing like that, try seeing where most of the flies are gathering around. As they are not great fliers, sewer gnats will often stick around the area where they feed and breed. There could be a crack in your sewer line, or a floor drain which is not often used, or a sump pit with stale water.
After finding out what are these small black flies feeding on in your basement, you will soon see yourself how many of them are there at the very feeding source. If you see several flies and their larvae, this is an absolutely clear sign of an annoying infestation.
How Do I Get Rid of Drain Flies in My Basement?
If you are still reading this article, you have probably decided to get rid of the drain flies in your basement. And we got you covered.
The best and most effective way of making sewer flies to leave your basement is to remove their feeding sources. This will obviously make it impossible for them to grow, but also to reproduce and lay new eggs. Since these flies are super small, they can feed on organic build ups which are not even visible to the human eye. So, please do not gently scrub their feeding source thinking that the issue will now be solved. Instead, try using some additional products which will help you get any hidden organic material out of the way. This is the only way to get rid of drain flies in your basement. And it is up to you to choose the most appropriate way to do that.
There are several affordable remedies which you can try out before heading to the exterminator. Some of them can even be crafted with the help of classic home products, which you probably already have somewhere handy. For instance, you can place a duct tape on the area where you see most of the gnats. Leave it overnight, as this is when they are active the most, and check how many are there in the morning. This is an excellent way of defining how bad your infestation is. If you manage to get to their feeding and breeding source, you can first pour some diluted bleach there, to kill as many larvae as possible.
However, home remedies will not work if you are not able to reach the very feeding source (for example, when you realize that the issue is in the pipes or in floor cracks). In such cases, you can try using probiotic drain gels, which are an amazingly innovative product. They are bio-friendly and super effective in fighting sewer flies.
You can find detailed descriptions on homemade and commercial remedies in our complete guide on how to get rid of drain flies.
Whichever of the options you choose, being that home remedies or commercial ones, please have patience. No infestation can be solved in a day or two, and this is valid for sewer flies in basements, too. Some people manage to do that in a week and others in a month, depending on how serious the problem is.
If you think that your issue with sewer flies is quite large, or that their feeding and breeding source is located in an extremely unreachable spot of the basement, you will probably need the help of a professional. Exterminators have their own ways of dealing with these fuzzy creatures, and they will surely resolve the matter in a brief period of time.
To conclude, it is vitally important to mention the following: once you manage to get rid of the small black flies in your basement, please do not forget to continually work on preventive cleaning activities. Or otherwise, they might come back.
