cdutoit

Hi Everyone

Now we have this one problem at our house which is really frustrating and that's a problem with flies!!! It's becoming so bad that you can't even have a normal bbq outside.

So we have tried that stuff that you hang on your trees but the problem was that it only made it worse as the entire neighborhood's flies came to our house because of the smell. We have even bought the citronella candles and not even that helped.

Do you have any suggestions or maybe a solution that worked for you?

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Chris du Toit
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Cork-Guy

You're having issues with flies outside? Most likely the issues is related to outside, flies don't live longer than 24-48 hours and don't travel far from their original metamorphose location from a maggot to a fly. There must be some location near by they are able to breed and feed; perhaps a dead animal carcass? You need to remove the area of food and breeding to prevent this issues successfully.

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TheClumsyCarpenter

I had a similar problem with japanese beetles at a townhouse I lived in at one point. I've always heard the traps/bags were a horrible idea because it basically draws them all to your house (like you mentioned)

My solution? I bought replacement bait caps for those bags, about 3 of them, and proceeded to throw them in other areas away from my lot.

Funny, I didn't see beetles anymore

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Grady

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Nestor_Kelebay

Have you tried placing a few home made fly traps around your property?

The smell of apple cider vinegar is second to none when it comes to attracting flies.

A traditional fly trap is made by first making a cone out of paper with a small hole at the narrow end. The hole should be just large enough for the fly to crawl through. Mix a few drops of liquid dish washing detergent into a few ounces of apple cider vinegar, and put that solution into a jar. Now fit the paper cone into the mouth of the jar.

The smell of the vinegar attracts the flies who crawl down the inside of the cone, through the hole and into the jar. The flies might try to land on the surface of the vingar, but the soap lowers the surface tension of the vinegar so that it won't support even tiny flies. The flies sink into the vinegar and drown.

Maybe make a fly trap, and if it works well then just buy some plastic funnels and punch small holes in the sides with a hot wire to let the smell of the cider out of the jar. (or drill or punch with a small nail) That would be much more durable than a paper cone as it would hold it's shape.

cdutoit

Thanks Nestor_Kelebay - I'll definitely give it a try. It's getting so bad that we don't even want to have a bbq anymore.

The only thing that I can think of is our dog's poo. There's no dead carcass around the house but I always see them around the dog's pills.

I think I'll move the stuff around and see if it helps to get rid of it.

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Chris du Toit
[url]http://buyindoorfloorfountains.com[/url]

Nestor_Kelebay

No, don't give up your bar-b-ques. Life wouldn't be worth living without bar-b-ques.

I did a quick Google check, and the web sites I found said that flies typically have a life span of 1 to 2 months, not 1 to 2 days.

Also, read the thread in this forum called "Bags of Water". Apparantly some restaurant owners have found that clear plastic bags full of water suspended from the ceiling cause flies to be scared away. The only explanation that makes any sense is that the fly presumes that the bag of water is another flying insect large enough to eat it. I don't know if it works, but it's also worth a try.

funetical

My brother in law, he's a keeper, uses bags of water around my in laws house. They seem to work. I didn't want them to but they did. Fill a 1 gallon freezer bag half full and place them though out the affected area. I've heard a lot of things about this but the most sensible is the refraction of light resembles movement and the flies being week and having no natural defense aside from being flies are scared away.

Nestor_Kelebay

Cdutoit:

You also might want to buy some bugs called "Fly Predators". They're commonly used by horse stables, dairy farms and the like because flies lay their eggs in manure, and the result is that horse stables and dairy barns would be infested with flies if they didn't do anything about them.

Flies start out life as eggs that become maggots. They then enter the pupa stage before emerging as the an adult fly. The Fly Predator insect is a tiny wasp about one tenth the size of a fly that lays it's eggs in fly pupae. The fly predator eggs grow rapidly, eating the fly pupa as they grow. The fly predator eggs then emerge from the shell of the fly pupa, and when they become mature, they in turn will lay eggs in any fly pupa they find.

If you can find the source of the flies, like a nearby garbage dump or anywhere you can find rotting organic matter, then releasing some of these fly predators in the area would curb the fly population.

What are Fly Predators - Fly Control by Spalding Labs

Fly Predators

Just Google "Fly Predators" and you'll find a lot of information about them. Alternatively, I think if you simply contact anyone who works on a dairy farm or at a horse stable, they'd have encountered problems with flies already and might have a better way of controlling the fly population.