Get rid of these pesky insects! Flies can be found in places where food ferments and decays; more specifically, you can find flies in restaurants, supermarkets, and–most importantly–your home. 90% of fly infestations in the home are caused by houseflies.
Where Can You Find Flies?
You can identify a housefly by the following characteristics:
- Adult flies are 8 to 12 millimeters in length
- These flies are grey in color with four black stripes running along their thorax
- Flies don’t have teeth, which means they shoot saliva out of their mouth to pre-digest their food
Female house flies can lay up to 150 eggs at one time; these hatch into maggots within a day. It is important to eliminate flies as soon as you find them, because the infestation cycle is very quick. Summers are ideal for flies because heat speeds up decomposition. In your home, your meals, pet food, and trash can be feasts for these pests.
Flies gather around trash bins outdoors, but if they get into your home, they will congregate anywhere. If you look around your house, you can find flies resting on the walls, floors, or ceilings in any room of your home. If you look outside, flies can be found anywhere during the summer months. If you see flies around your home, it’s important to get rid of them before they cause any damage.
How Do Flies Cause Damage?
If you have flies buzzing around your house, it is annoying and unsettling, but house flies are also disease carriers. Flies can carry and transfer pathogens when they travel, which can manifest in a person’s body as a virus or infection. Flies can possibly transmit typhoid, tuberculosis, cholera, food poisoning, salmonellosis, eye infections, or parasitic worms.
How Do I Prevent a Fly Infestation in my House?
Before you do anything, remember to work to prevent an infestation in the first place.
Indoors, make sure your windows, doors, and vents are completely sealed. Store your food in airtight containers, put away any dirty dishes or containers, and use a trash can with a tight-fitting lid. Outside, don’t leave grass clippings or leaves out to decay around your house. Turn off outdoor lights and clean up your animal waste right away.
How Do I Get Rid of Flies?
There are a variety of do-it-yourself methods to get rid of flies—to varying degrees of success.
Some people prefer to naturally exterminate flies, rather than with pesticides. Some of these natural methods include:
- Planting herbs and flowers in your outdoor garden that repel flies, including basil, marigold, lavender, bay leaves, and/or catnip.
- Mixing an inch of apple cider vinegar and a few drops of dish soap in a tall glass. Cover the glass with plastic wrap, secure the wrap with a rubber band, and poke holes on the top. Flies will fly through the holes to get to the vinegar, but the dish soap makes them sink so they cannot escape.
- Combining cayenne pepper and water in a spray bottle. If you spray this concoction around the house, it will repel flies.
- Planting Venus flytraps (carnivorous plants that eat insects) in your garden so that they eat the flies.
- Using food or drinks that attract flies to entice them into traps, including sugar, wine, fruit, or meat.
Other people prefer to use insecticides and traps to kill flies. Consider the following methods:
- Sticky traps, which are strips of sticky paper that can be hung around your house.
- Light traps are boxes with a light in the back that attract flies. When the flies approach the light, they will be killed with an electric zap or trapped.
- Pyrethrin-based insecticides work quickly, but are not long-term solutions. Be sure to choose an insecticide that is for indoor use and follow the directions provided.
Fly Control and Extermination
You don’t want pesky and dirty flies in your home. Eliminate ‘Em Pest Control Services offer licensed technicians and fast, courteous, and professional services to handle your fly extermination requests. We offer same-day service and free estimates for fly control. Professional technicians are available 24/7 to get rid of the flies that are causing trouble, or creating annoyances, in and around your home.
Call Eliminate ‘Em (866-388-8344) for immediate fly control and extermination services!
