The weather has finally warmed up here and now there plenty of super annoying houseflies. They’re way to fast to swat and have an annoying habit of landing on you.
I’ve tried Google’s suggestion of water/vinegar and a bit of dish soap in a bottle, but they don’t seem to go for it at all.
I’m up for trying anything, please make suggestions!
Edit: Thank you to all for your suggestions. So far I’ve tried the idea of spraying them with surface cleaner which appears to work well
I’ve discovered that I’m good at herding flies.
I start by turning off lights sources including the TV, and closing all the doors and curtains except for one open window which is now the brightest, and therefore most attractive destination for the fly.
Then I just stand so that the fly is between me and the window. I wave my arms out sideways, kind of like semaphore, and it discourages the fly from flying towards my body and my hands, and can only avoid me by flying in the direction of the window.
It doesn’t work at night since turning the lights off means I can’t see the fly, and with the light on, it just flies to the light, lol.
They also don’t like wind, so if there is a breeze outside, I make a stronger breeze inside by swinging a towel like a helicopter blade, and it makes the entire room very undesirable for the fly.
When I was a kid I would just wait until the fly was bouncing itself against the window, and just catch it in my hand, then throw it out and open window.
It also helps if you keep your house free of stale or rotting food smells.
This skill has dramatically reduced the number of flies I’ve killed by swatting.
I love this, but also found it hilarious - especially the towel as a helicopter blade trick and your description of it being “very undesirable for the fly.” I’m picturing your partner or housemate sighing and being like, “there they go again, herding flies.” I can definitely see it working though.
Thank you for providing a non lethal alternative method. I’m uncomfortable with how much death humans gleefully visit upon the insect kingdom when they don’t have to.
Yeah. They clearly have little lives and experiences, however different from ours. What few experiments there are seem to indicate that at least some don’t experience pain, which is great news, but even that’s not completely conclusive just due to being under-researched, and due to it being a ridiculously diverse subphylum.
I’ve never thought of blocking out windows. I usually just wait for them to be stuck on a particular one, and catch them there.
A transparent cup works very well because they can’t really see it coming. Then it’s just a matter of slowly working a piece of cardstock or similar under, and taking a trip outside.
I came to this to post the same method with turning off lights so they go toward my patio door, then I just crack the door and shoo them out. Glad to see someone else using this very fast method, generally it only takes a few minutes for the fly to decide it doesn’t want to be in the dark.
You’ll catch some flies (and various other insects) with fly paper. The good thing is that it doesn’t smell.
Never heard of houseflies going for vinegar, AFAIK that’s for fruit flies (and even that is rather tricky IME).
It’s apple cider vinegar that works, regular vinegar doesn’t really work well.
Osage oranges also are great for fruit flies.
I have a BUG-A-SALT that attached a laser sight on. It can take out a fly from a few feet away. And it makes it fun.
Seems kinda messy to be shooting salt all over your living space, though.
fellow bug-a-salt owner here. can confirm this works great and makes it fun.
now tell me amore bout this laser sight?
Glass cups work unfailingly for me. As far as I know they don’t see very well, so once, I tried slowly lowering one over them, and have been doing it since. Nothing else needed, just wait for it to land near you on a hard and even surface. They so far have not noticed it until the cup was fully down. After catching one, I slide a thin paper/something under the cup, and take the whole thing outside to release it.
Yeah this is my method as well. Glass cup, very slowly descending from directly above them and they don’t seem to detect it.
Get a used spray bottle, one that you can adjust the spray to be narrow or wide angled by screwing unscrewing the cap. Set it to wide angled. Fill the bottle with some water and cleaning solution. Something you wouldn’t mind being sprayed about. Surface cleaner is a good bet because you probably already have that around the house to clean with.
Creep up on a fly with this diluted concoction and let rip. It might try and fly away but the wide angled spray plus the slight stickiness of the solution will hamper it’s efforts. Watch as it falls to the floor and writhes about in agony as it desperately tries to breathe (flies breathe through their skin which is now clogged with cleaning solution). It’s wings will be useless now too as they’ll be weighed down by the solution.
Finally with some tissues mop up and squash the little shit. For the first several flies leave them where you let them die as a warning to other flies in the area. After a couple of days you can clean up the bodies.
You’re welcome 🤗.
Agreed, though I’ve found that usually dousing a fly in water (via spray bottle) is enough to surprise them & get them to drop. Once they’ve fallen it takes them a bit to dry themselves & get airborne again, that’s usually enough time to swat it and finish the job.
That works well if you just have one or a few flies - if you’ve got a ton of them fly paper is going to work much better.
