Last Updated on February 11, 2022 by Kravelv
Everyone gets excited when summer rolls around. When the heady scent of flowers and freshly cut grass fills the air, everyone starts gearing up for outdoor fun by the pool, BBQs in the yard, and alfresco meals with family and friends.
But, along with the heat, summer also brings one of life’s greatest nuisances: hordes of buzzing flies.
Although flies reproduce all year round, they are far more active in the hotter months. That’s when you’ll notice them hovering over the food you’re preparing in the kitchen and generally buzzing around you like the annoying pests they are.
Read on to find out how to get rid of flies in your home and yard.
Remove What’s Attracting Them
Houseflies are drawn to all the gross things in your home and yard. They love pet waste, drain sludge, overripe fruit and vegetables, compost heaps, sticky spills, and garbage cans.
Allowing these things to remain in your home and yard can create a huge fly problem. Because a single fly can lay hundreds of eggs in just 10 to 25 days, they can multiply and quickly get out of control.
To keep flies at bay, clean your cat’s litter box daily, clean up spills as they happen, clean out your garbage disposal, and store all your food in the refrigerator.
Be mindful of any fly buffets (both inside and outside) – like overflowing trash cans, rotting plant matter, and dog excrement on the lawn. And don’t forget to clean and disinfect your garbage cans and recycling bins.
Make a DIY Trap
To catch the flies entering your house, you can make a DIY trap – all you need is a sugary liquid and an empty soda bottle.
Cut the top third of the soda bottle off and set it aside. Next, pour some fruit juice or sugar water into the bottom of the bottle. Then, take the top of the bottle that you removed, invert it, and place it into the bottom half of the soda bottle – like a funnel. Flies will be attracted to the sweet liquid in the DIY trap and fall in, but they won’t be able to fly out.
IF your DIY trap isn’t attracting flies, try adding a few meat scraps to the bottom of the soda bottle.
Install a ‘Zapper’
Flies are attracted to ultraviolet light, so ‘bug zappers’ with an electric grid are highly effective at eliminating them. Many of these electric fly traps simply plug into an electrical socket, and you can use them indoors or outdoors.
However, if you’re using an electric bug trap, be sure to place it around 4 to 6 feet above the floor – this is where flies like to hover.
When to Call the Professionals
The best way to keep the fly population down is to eliminate the adults before they have time to lay their eggs.
If you’ve tried removing anything that could be attracting flies and have used traps with no success, it’s probably a good idea to call a professional exterminator. A qualified pest control technician will be able to identify fly breeding sites in and around your home and apply a pesticide to kill them.