Pest:

Flies

  

 

 

 

Question: We have a terrible problem with flies. Can you suggest anything that will help?

 

Answer: Most people here just try to keep them away from the doors.  We have screen doors here to let in the fresh breeze.  Flies seem attracted to screens for some reason.  If you take a clear plastic bag (like a sandwich bag) fill it with water, and hang it on the screen as high as you can hang it, the flies will not get on your screens.  I do not know why this works, but it does.  My brother, who lived not very far from a commercial chicken farm could not get in his front door without the house filling up with flies.  He used this trick, and the flies left.  He tied the top of the bag with string and hung it on the screen with a bobby pen.  Like I said I do not know why but it does work for screens.  Hope this helps some. Byron Tumlinson
 
Last year on the evening news they were trying to answers a viewer's question
about why were the flies so bad. The answer came back that Oh they weren't
really that bad... Their life span is really short, a matter of days. They die out and
are gone. Well not really. A few more days and more eggs hatch and you have
a whole new batch. I remember from long ago, the farmers would all hang fly
strips from the rafters to catch the flies and kill them before they could lay eggs
and all. We have cute little sticky traps now but I like the ones they carry at the
farm store that are just a flat white board with plenty of sticky on it. They don't
get a lot of flies unless you put a bait on the sticky. The old fly tapes were super
cheap but they did have a lure on them to attract the fly. If you ever get stuck in
one, you learn a great respect for them. They are super sticky. Keep a swatter
in the area where they are at their worst and every time you kill a dozen, you
can estimate that you've prevented a few hundred thousand from ever being born.  Nita Holstine