How to Rid Your Home of Flies

Flies spread disease, contaminate food and can place human health at risk.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Sticky Traps
• Window Screens
• Fly Repellent
• Caulks

1. Keep flies out with barriers, your first and best line of defense. Screen all windows and doors. Seal and caulk all cracks and crevices.

2. Remove all outside organic-waste piles, which can be used as breeding sites: dog feces, animal manures, piles of grass clippings. (Hot compost piles are inhospitable to breeding flies.) Keep garbage in a container with a tightly fitting lid.

3. Put out traps - flypaper or sticky tape will catch a few flies. Use inverted cone traps to attract more flies with food bait.

4. Remember that bait only works well if flies do not have access to other food sources. Place baits well away from eating areas.

5. Cover and refrigerate leftovers.

6. Use a flyswatter against the occasional fly that strays into the house.

Tips & Warnings

• Egg-to-adult development in flies can take place in as little as 7 to 10 days.
• The best time to control fly populations is at their juvenile or larval stage, by eliminating breeding areas such as organic garbage and dog feces.
• Flies rapidly develop resistance to insecticides, so use them only as a last resort.
• Use nonresidual pyrethrin sprays indoors, carefully following all directions.

on 8/16/2006 Fabric softener sheets. Place them around the areas you want to keep flys' away from.

on 7/14/2006 Hang CD's from a string in the doorway or along an area where you don't want flies - the flies will stay away! Apparently they think it's a giant bug eye or something - whatever it is - it works!

on 7/6/2006 I love having my doors open and don't use traditional screen doors because I have 4 dogs who like to accompany me in and out all day. So I made "screen doors" out of lace panels. You could use old table clothes or window coverings, or for that matter new window coverings would work. I used an adjustable rod, typically used for window treatments, then sewed a hem on the lace panel to slip over the adjustable rod. Then I hang the rod up, and voilà - a screen that deters flies very effectively.

Remember to use more fabric width-wise than the space is, so there is bunching on the rod. I cut mine to be about 1/2 inch shorter in height than the door frame, and I used safety pins to attach washers and bolts to the bottom corners so they don't blow too much in the breeze. They move very easily to either side as you go in and out, and also are very easy to store in the non-fly months. The dogs and I love this approach!

on 11/22/2005 If you want to get rid of flies, try hanging up a plastic bag (that zips up) filled with water (only half way or a little bit less). It works wonders.