The gnats turned up in April 2025, about a week after I repotted six plants on the old card table in the garage. I did what the garden center suggested and used a soil drench once. The gnats eased off and then came back about three weeks later, which is the part nobody mentions at the register. That was the last drench I bought.
In May 2025 I ordered the Stingmon sticky traps, the 36 pack, and pushed six of them into six pots. Inside about two weeks the gnats were clearly fewer, though I will say straight out that I also let the soil dry more between waterings, so the traps did not do it alone. Eighteen months later I keep two Stingmon cards out at a time and I am about half a pack from the end. Here is why they have stayed within arm's reach of my plants ever since.
Six traps in six pots told me more in two weeks than a drench did in a month
The 36 pack, coated on both faces, with a sharp bottom that pushes straight into the potting mix. No stakes, no batteries. Today's price is on the listing, along with the other 32,000 odd reviews.
Amazon See the 36 pack on Amazon →They catch the adults that are laying the eggs
A trap is not a cure, and I would not pretend otherwise. It catches the grown gnats that fly, while the eggs and larvae in the wet soil keep coming for a while yet. That sounds small until you remember that every adult you catch is one that will not lay another batch in your potting mix. I stopped expecting the traps to end the problem and started expecting them to shrink it. That is the job, and they do it steadily.
The sharp bottom pushes into the soil on its own, so there is nothing to assemble
The bottom edge of each trap is cut sharp, so you push it into the potting mix and it stands there by itself. No stake, no clip, no little plastic holder to lose behind the pot. I set mine beside the stem rather than on top of the roots, and it stays upright when I water around it. For a woman with a bad back who does not want one more gadget to fiddle with, that counts for more than it should.
Both faces are coated, so you are not throwing away half a trap
Each Stingmon card carries glue on both sides. I have had mine since May 2025 and about half the pack is still sitting in the kitchen junk drawer, which tells you how far one box stretches. When you are buying one thing at a time and nothing in a hurry, a pack that lasts past a year is the difference between a purchase and a chore. I have never once felt like I was rationing them.
Six traps in six pots gave me a number to work with
Before the traps I had a feeling that there were rather a lot of gnats. After two weeks I had a count on six sticky faces, and a feeling turned into a fact. That is worth something when you are deciding whether to repot everything or just water less. I went with the second option because the traps showed me the problem was bad but not hopeless. Guessing would have cost me a Saturday and a bag of mix.
You can see what you caught, which a drench never tells you
The drench went in and I had to take it on faith. The traps show me black specks on a surface, and I can tell whether that is ten gnats or two hundred. When the count drops from one week to the next, I know the drying out is working and I leave things alone. When it climbs, I know I have been too generous with the watering can. Nothing else in my plant kit gives me that kind of answer.
Two out at a time is the entire routine
I do not rotate, schedule, or keep notes. Two Stingmon traps stay out, one in the living room and one near the kitchen sill, and I swap them when they are full, which works out to about every four weeks. That is the whole system. Gene has never had to ask what I am doing with the flat thing in the pot, and I have never had to explain it to Deb when she looks in on the plants before we travel.
They are not only for gnats
The listing names fungus gnats and a good deal more: whiteflies, blackflies, thrips, fruit flies, midges, mosquitoes and other flying insects. I have caught gnats and, in September, a run of fruit flies that came up from the kitchen counter rather than the pots. I stuck one trap behind the fruit bowl and it filled in four days. That was the first quiet week I had all summer, and I did not buy anything special for it.
No cord, no battery, nothing to remember
The power source is manual, which is a grand way of saying there is no power source. Each trap weighs barely an ounce and measures about 3.15 inches wide by 5.2 inches tall, so it disappears among the leaves. I have a grow light on a timer in the dining room and I have to think about that one. I have never once thought about these. They sit in the soil and do their work while I am in Tucson or asleep.
They live up high, away from Pepper and Biscuit
I put traps only in pots on the high shelves and the window sills, never in anything sitting on the floor where a cat can reach in and bat at it. Pepper climbs, so anything I would rather she left alone lives up high or behind a closed door, and that rule covers these as well as the plants. If you keep pets, keep the traps out of their reach and ask your own vet about anything you are unsure of.
One warning before you buy, and one gripe of mine
The listing says plainly that warm summer temperatures can soften the glue, and I believe it. My kitchen gets close in July, so I keep that sill trap where the sun does not sit on it all afternoon. My own gripe is smaller: Stingmon cards are ugly, and reaching past one grabs your sleeve or your hair. I have lost a little hair to a trap more than once. I still keep them out, because they work.
What I'd Skip
I would skip the soil drench, and I did. Mine eased the gnats and they were back inside three weeks, so I paid twice for the same problem. I would also skip the old trick of sticking terracotta spikes in wine bottles. I tried that in October 2024 before a ten day trip and the bottles emptied in about four days and I lost my first Boston fern to it. The fern I have now came in spring 2025 and it gets a proper stake with a jug, not a bottle.
The last thing I would skip is the idea that traps alone will fix a gnat problem. The Stingmon traps cut the adults down while I fixed my watering, and that is the honest order of it. If your soil stays wet, no sticky surface on earth will keep up. Buy the traps, then leave the watering can alone for a few extra days. That combination is what gave me a quiet living room again, and it has held for eighteen months.
The traps did not end the gnats. They showed me how many there were, and they cut the number down while I fixed my watering.
Eighteen months, half a pack left, and two traps still sitting in my pots
Stingmon sells these in a 36 pack, dual-sided, with a sharp bottom that goes straight into the potting mix. If you are tired of guessing how bad the gnats are, this gives you a number in about two weeks.
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