Since it's getting warmer outside the flies have returned. I don't have nets installed on my windows so the pesky buggers keep coming in. Now, like I mentioned in some other thread I don't want to use chemical sprays or devices since they're expensive to refill and can cause damage to my health (I know, I'm crazy). And so I'm looking for do it yourself solutions to combat flies. One thing I want to try is growing mint or basil, I'm reading that these two herbs keep flies away. What about yourselves, how are you keeping your house fly free?
I place a dish with an inch of apple cider vinegar and a small amount of Dawn dish liquid in it on the kitchen counter. The apple cider vinegar attracts the flies and the dishwashing soap drowns them. Within 24 hours, you should end up with a dish of drowned flies, and you didn't use any pesticides or expensive devices.
I would be careful with how long you let the fly problem persist, because if they get too out of hand, they will start laying eggs on your carpet and furniture and you will wind up with a full blown infestation. A few years ago, I started noticing there was always one or two of these little black gnats flying around my place. As soon as I would kill one, another one would show up. This went on for a couple of weeks (sometimes they were even landing in my drinks) then I suddenly started noticing a lot more of them, like 20 or so flying around the lights in my bathroom and elsewhere in my house. Finally I had no choice but to bug bomb my entire apartment. It worked, but you need to to it twice and not only is it expensive, but it really stinks your place up. I could barely breath when I walked back in my place and tried to get to the windows to open them. Another friend of mine also started having a problem with little flies in her house after she accidentally flooded her bathroom and it came through her ceiling. We're not sure where they were nesting or laying eggs, but she could not get rid of them no matter what she did - we tried the Dawn Detergent in a bowl of water, bleach in a bowl of water and several other methods, and nothing seemed to work.
I came home from holidays to find my kitchen and bathroom filled with fruit flies. After washing everything counters, sinks etc I still couldn't get rid of them. A friend told me this solution. Take a glass jar and fill it with apple cider vinegar, a drop of dawn detergent and a piece of rotten fruit. I like to use clear glass so you can see the next day how many fruit flies you have caught. Take a paper and make a funnel out of it and place in the jar. The flies love the smell of the cider vinegar and go down to investigate and can't get out. Leave your trap out for 2-3 days and they will all be gone.
Flies and gnats are irritants. When we have house guests and we serve lunch in the terrace, we would light up some candles. They surely scare away the flies. However, if the dish is seafood, those pesky flies are too difficult to drive away so we would be serving food in the living room. Our house is shielded by screen doors and all our windows are screened as well to keep off the flies in the daytime and mosquitoes during nighttime.
I would just take the Baygon route, but having a good fly swatter helps, lol. Try getting a fly trap or follow one of these tips on this site:Log In
