How to Get Rid of Flies and Flying Insects

Shoo Fly!

Pests are a pain to deal with when they are crawling on your floors, getting into your pantry and contaminating your food. The winged variety is even more of a pesky problem. They can get at where crawling insects have to work hard to get to, like the pie you placed on the window sill to cool.

Common Flying Pests

If you expect to eradicate flying insects from your home, you must first analyze their nature and their feeding habits. In fact, this is exactly how pest control services curb fly infestations. So without further ado, let’s see what type of flying insects might plague you –

• Garbage Flies

Also known as the common house fly, the garbage fly is aptly named. These particular flying insects lay their eggs in the filthiest places you can imagine such as decaying garbage, offal and corpses.

Keep garbage sites clean and cans covered.

While their tendency to decompose dead matter does play a vital role, their tendency to feed on rot makes them an extremely unwelcome, and not to mention unsanitary, house guest.

• How to Get rid of them – Make sure that your trash cans are always covered with their lids. Also ensure that the garbage bags don’t overflow. You do not want any fly to have access to it. If you find the carcass of any dead animal on your property, such as a rat, get rid of it immediately. Garbage flies carry diseases and most of them are carried over by rotting corpses.

• Sewer Flies

This variety includes a variety of flying insects such as phorid flies, moth flies, blow flies and even house flies. Drain flies are other possible candidates.

These types of pests can be found flitting around near or on bathroom pipes, drains and other plumbing areas where moist garbage accumulates. Don’t think that they will come in handy in eating away clogs in drains. They tend to lay their eggs in the filth and give rise to large infestations.

• How to get rid of them – One of the most obvious pest control methods for sewer flies should involve a regular checkup and cleanup of the drains in your home. Such places are their breeding grounds as mentioned. And the cleaner they are the harder will it be for the pests to lay eggs in. A commercial drain pipe cleaner can come in handy in taking out the stickiest sludge. Use a long handled brush to scrub out the drains thoroughly. Once you have successfully followed through with the cleanup process, you will disturb the pests’ reproduction cycle and get rid of any infestations.

• Fruit Flies

They might only feed on fruit but that doesn’t make them any less of a pest. They breed voraciously during the summer time especially during harvest. Their diet basically includes ripened vegetables and fruit or any type of fermented product. Fruit flies lay their eggs on stagnant water or in organic material. You may have a possible infestation in your home if you see adult flies flying around your kitchen or near the garbage cans.

Fruit Fly

• How to get rid of them – As their name implies, fruit flies are attracted to the scent of sugary foods. They also like to lay their eggs in rotting fruit or vegetables. You can avoid possible fruit fly infestations if you look out for and dispose of any rotting fruits or vegetables in your kitchen.
• The same goes for any damaged fruit. If you already have an infestation on your hands, you can prevent it from getting worse by storing all of your fruits and vegetables in the fridge until the infestation is under control.

Of course, fruit flies aren’t choosy about where they breed. A piece of fruit in a drain or garbage is enough for them. Just apply the prevention methods mentioned above and no fruit fly will bother you again.

Other Methods

Of course, you cannot expect the neighbors to be as meticulous in their pest control efforts as you are. They won’t necessarily be consistent in keeping their trash cans lidded, clean their outdoor drains or dispose of their trash in a responsible manner either. You can prevent flying pests from entering your home by –

• Installing window screens – Flying pests cannot infest your home if they cannot enter it. Install some mesh screens on doors or windows that you like to keep open and no flying pest will be able to get in. Mesh screen coverings can easily be acquired in most hardware stores. This way, you will keep the pests out and let the breeze in.
• Repellents – Ultrasonic pest repellers are known to be effective against most flying insects and flies are no exception. Some natural repellers like incense may also work in keeping them away.
• Fly Paper – This is one of the oldest remedies to get rid of flies. Also known as fly ribbons, fly paper is simply a sheet of paper that is baited with a sweet smelling and sticky substance. Any flying insect that lands on it to investigate the alluring aroma gets trapped instantly. And the more they struggle the more they get stuck.
• You can get more flies with honey than vinegar. The old adage also rings true in pest control. Remember, it is not how many pest control solutions you use against the flying pests; it is how smart you are in applying the techniques. Fortunately, once you know their nature or eating habits you won’t have a problem applying appropriate pest control techniques that will be effective against them. You might spare yourself from dealing with a possible infestation so it’s best that you start now.