Indoor peppers and chillis - little flies

[TheSpectacledBear]

I have half a dozen pepper and chilli plants on windowsills, and some of them have loads of little flies flying around them and on the leaves. They don't really seem to be doing any harm to the plants, as far as I can tell, but they're quite annoying since the plants are in the living room, bedroom and spare room.

One was so bad (baby orange pepper) that Himself put it outside (I was away). I don't know what to use to try to get rid of them. They're too small for me to see clearly, but they seem to be black/brown, and are apparently hatching under the top level of the compost, because they're crawling around on the surface before they start flying around.

Is there anything organic (and cheap!) i can use to get rid of them? Or are they basically harmless? I honestly don't know whether they're fungus flies, mites, or what.

TIA for any help!

[Alice]

They're fungus flies and they come out of the compost. More of a nuisance than anything else.
Someone on here said sprinkling chilli powder on the surface of the compost does for them. Worth a try.

[annacruachan]

Yes, I thought that must be where they were coming from! Thanks for the tip, Alice. I'll get the chilli pepper out now!

[TheSpectacledBear]

Yes, thank you Alice! I'll give the chilli powder a try.

[howzermd]

Can you let me know how you got on with the chilli powder? I've got the same problem and have tried a number of things to get rid of them but they keep coming back...! I've also heard a shallow dish of wine/vinegar attracts and drowns them, and also that they'll be attracted to sticky yellow paper, but i'm rather sceptical!

[tamsin]

I used yellow sticky paper, caught loads of them and they've disappeared