Fed Up with House Flies?

There you are, feet up in the house in a nice cool room, reading a good book. After a few moments a house fly invites itself in and proceeds to annoy you by flying around, buzzing near your ears, landing on any food and drink in sight and staying just out of reach as you try to swat it.

If you’re fed up with these pesky flies, you are certainly not alone!

The question, then, is how to get rid of them. We’ve all got sprays that aim to kill them quickly but they don’t smell pleasant and you won’t want to spray them near any pets or indeed near yourself if you can help it. Are there any other solutions?

Firstly it is important to make sure your home is minimally-attractive to flies to begin with. This means regularly cleaning any and all surfaces where food and drink have been. Obviously the kitchen will be a hotspot to focus on, but if you’ve been eating anywhere else in the house, you should make sure you clean up thoroughly as soon as you have finished. Don’t forget the fruit bowl either – rotting fruit can be a really attractive proposition for a fly.

Keeping them out of your house in the first place is the best idea. However in the summer you won’t want to keep your doors and windows closed all the time. You can however get screens for windows and doors that allow airflow but exclude pesky flies as well as wasps and bees from getting into your home.

You can also make a homemade fly trap from natural ingredients. Save a jar you’ve washed up and you’re about to bin. Mix up some sugar water inside and make a paper funnel to tuck into the top of the jar. The aroma of the sugar water will attract the flies and they will go into the jar, aided in their journey by the funnel. Pop one of these on windowsills if you have the windows open and no screen up.

As you can see there are a variety of ways you can ward off flies instead of chasing them around your home. The fewer flies you have inside your home in the first place, the fewer you have to get rid of. Prevention is always going to be better than trying to find a cure.