How do you (attempt to) eliminate flies from your house?

[RegGuheert]

I'm posting this in hopes of finding the long-sought-after solution to common houseflies in the house. Please vote for all of the approaches used in your household. If you vote for 'Other', then please explain what you do. If you claim you do not have common houseflies in your house, please tell use where you live so that we can all move in next door! :D

Edited July 6, 2009 by RegGuheert
Specified common houseflies.

[Dobela]

I don't see a place to vote yet but we keep away flies by keeping the door shut as much as possible and owning cats that love to eat flies.

[RegGuheert]

 

I don't see a place to vote yet but we keep away flies by keeping the door shut as much as possible and owning cats that love to eat flies.

OK I thought we had the BEST cats in the world! They eat just about any critter that walks or flies including crickets and they are GREAT pets, but I have tried to get them interested in flies. No luck. Can you please tell us you you train them to eat flies? Perhaps starving them for long periods is important? :bigear:

[vettechmomof2]

cats

[Lovedtodeath]

My cats eat them. They don't have any food more often than they do. I had to move it to the garage and I always forget about them, poor things.

 

You could try an arachnid, amphibian or reptile that eats flies, or a venus fly trap. We don't get many in the house. We keep doors closed as much as we can.

 

If you have gnats or fruit flies, they require special treatment. I can give you tips on those.

 

Shoo them out! Really? :lol: No... I kill them. I do put spiders outside (or leave them be) instead of killing them... because they eat flies of course! DD is actually really good at catching them in a cup. It is much easier than swatting.

Edited July 6, 2009 by Lovedtodeath

[Plucky]

When we lived in the country we'd put a sandwich baggie filled with water just above the door. It worked for us. Supposedly it keeps flies from hanging around the door and trying to get in because they see a distorted reflection of themselves. I don't know if it's true or not but it helped us.

 

I want to know what to do about these blasted mosquitoes!

[RegGuheert]

When we lived in the country we'd put a sandwich baggie filled with water just above the door. It worked for us. Supposedly it keeps flies from hanging around the door and trying to get in because they see a distorted reflection of themselves. I don't know if it's true or not but it helped us.

 

I want to know what to do about these blasted mosquitoes!

I meant to put that one on the poll, but I forgot! I heard about it just this week! Strange!

[Orthodox6]

We maintain a frog pond in our living room, and daily turn the frogs loose throughout the house.

 

 

(Big, fat whopper that was. . . but I thought I would see how folks react.)

[Scuff]

Our cat likes to hunt them. He sucks at catching mice, but he does a good job withthe flies! :lol:

[Plucky]

We maintain a frog pond in our living room, and daily turn the frogs loose throughout the house.

 

 

(Big, fat whopper that was. . . but I thought I would see how folks react.)

 

I can't believe you people resort to the murder of innocent flies by frogs and cats! It's inhumane! :D

[runninmommy]

Make a fly trap. If you google them you will come up with some for fruit flies, house flies etc. The idea is to attract them to a jar they can not climb out of and they will drown in liquid. They also sell some at the box stores but it will probably be cheaper to make your own.

 

House flies will need a trap they can not climb out of.

 

Fruit flies are a little easier. You can just put out mason jars with apple cider vinegar and water in them. They are attracted to it and will drown.

[Jumping In Puddles]

If they are hanging around the screen of a window, I usually shut the window until the fly dies (by the next day) or if it is by a door, I try to shoo it out.

 

But, while I was spraying my son's mattress with alcohol (I just put a spray bottle top on the alcohol bottle) there was a fly buzzing around his window, so I squirted him with the alcohol and he dropped dead! :w00t: So if it is near a surface, I spray him with a little alcohol.

 

Many times, I just swat 'em with a rolled up magazine.

[Orthodox6]

Turning serious . . . We do not have many flies in the house. Maybe one every month during the summers ? Fewer ? We don't open our windows because all the screens are torn, and we can't afford to replace them. When that rare fly appears, sometimes the beagle nabs it, sometimes I whack it with a sales flyer, sometimes it dies of social neglect.

[Pamela H in Texas]

We don't have many flies now that we don't have guinea pigs. Our methods? We moved the big trashcan further from the back door. We keep the doors shut. We swat. Our lab hunts them.

[Tess in the Burbs]

I tried a new method this week from the http://WWW....

 

vinegar and dish soap. yes, it worked. no, it didn't clear my entire backayard, lol. but I had a bowlful!

[secular_mom]

Learned this trick from our neighbor- she sprays flying insect killer on and around her screen door every morning, and that repels the flies so they don't come rushing inside when she opens her door. We're just starting this.

 

She also said that her DIL was at a picnic where people sprayed Listering (they had transferred it to a spray bottle) on the table cloth, and that the flies/gnats/mosquitoes stayed away from the table after that.

[Nestof3]

We only have a fly in our house about once every two weeks.

 

We keep our trashcans away from the back door, and we don't have farm animals.

[Danestress]

I would start with that. We do have the occasional fly and a flyswatter works fine. But when I start seeing them, I make sure that all our recycling is getting washed before it goes outside, that garbage is securely wrapped, and that someone is picking up all dog poop from they yard and tying it in bags for disposal.

 

If I do those three things, I don't have many flies.

[elise1mds]

This is hilarious... I chose 'other' based on my cats' flycatching abilities before I'd read any of the answers. We don't get a lot of flies in the house, though. They primarily stay out near the shed and the horses.

[leaird]

I wish we didn't have a problem with flies, but we do -- a BIG problem! The property that backs up to ours is a cow pasture. It is not unusual for us to end up with a dozen flies in our house. I am obsessed with swatting them. They are much smarter than everyone gives them credit for. As soon as the swatter comes out, they disappear! We have tried the fly traps that you buy from Lowe's, but they smell like rotting meat. They attract lots of flies, but also make it where you can't stand to be outside. My family thinks I am crazy because I will go outside with the fly swatter to kill flies. I figure it has to eventually make a difference, right? Less flies to reproduce and fill my house. I am willing to try anything, so keep the suggestions coming.

[Satori]

I have never seen a fly in our house! We live at 9000 feet in the mountains, it's usually very dry, and we have 3 cats, maybe that's why?

 

Spiders I set outside carefully, we have plenty of them, which might be yet another reason I've never seen a fly. We've had a few crickets now and then, but never flies.

 

Back when I lived in Minnesota, I was seriously considering setting up a bat house to eat all the mosquitoes, they were so bad we couldn't go outside at night to look through our telescope. Bats are great at eating those bad mosquitoes.

 

My warehouse I get the occasional fly and many moths this time of year. Sometimes people would work and leave the doors open. For them I set out the sticky tape and sticky traps. My husband and I felt a bit bad about that (we hate to hurt even a fly) but in the end, were able to overcome that, hehe.

[Karen in CO]

It must be the altitude. :)

We live at 7500 feet and have very few flies. When the occasional fly or more often moth gets in, my dog (Jack Russell terrier) chases it, and if it gets to the storm door, we let it out.

[Sharon in SC]

I'm posting this in hopes of finding the long-sought-after solution to flies in the house. Please vote for all of the approaches used in your household. If you vote for 'Other', then please explain what you do. If you claim you do not have flies in your house, please tell use where you live so that we can all move in next door! :D

 

Depends on what type of fly. Housefly? "Sewer pipe" flies?

[Reya]

 

I want to know what to do about these blasted mosquitoes!

 

MegaCatch! They work GREAT!

[RegGuheert]

 

Depends on what type of fly. Housefly? "Sewer pipe" flies?

Sorry, I meant to specify that I was talking about common houseflies. I'll edit the original post.

[Dirtroad]

Constanly remind kids to close the doors or don't stand with the door open. If you live near farms... you just have more flies too.

 

we don't have many, but when we do... swat! out of here!

[LaxMom]

We live in chicken country, but in town, so we also have household rubbish around (and for whatever reason, very few people have grasped the concept of a lid).

 

When it's like a Hitchcock film in here, we vaccum them from around the windows, etc. with the regular vacuum. (Last year, it was so bad, I was beginning to think there was something dead under the floor - we'd vacuum hundreds out of the kitchen windows, only to come back and find just as many a little while later - brrrr.) We swat singles here and there.

 

To keep them from coming into the house, we give them something more interesting to do, in the form of the great, stinky, watery abyss aka the fly trap. A few hours after we hang one in a "trouble area" (like around the rubbish bins, or near our kitchen door), the thing is just teeming with them. :ack2:

 

I discourage the pets from eating them. They carry all sorts of nasties, including antibiotic resistant e.coli and other delightful things from the chicken farms around here.

 

Now, if I could find a way to deal with the "little" flies (like latrine flies, but different) that fly in formation under things such as lights, like fly mimes in the box, I would be ecstatic. They don't come in very often, but they don't seem to ever land, they're took quick for the vacuum, and seem impervious to the call of the lure.