The common housefly: How can you prevent a fly invasion in your own four walls? And what can you do when the annoying beasts are already in the house?

The most important things at a glance

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• Prevent the plague of flies: quickly remove leftovers
• Build fly traps yourself
• keep flies away
• Drive away flies with scent and plants

Who does not know that? You’re sitting at breakfast, rubbing the last bit of sleep out of your eyes and watching a fly attack the freshly smeared bread with jam. The uninvited breakfast guest can be scared away for the moment, but the animals seem to have an unmistakable sense of where they are particularly annoying. And that’s where they settle down.

A fly lays up to 1,000 eggs

Once a fly has found its way into the house, the population can quickly become a nuisance. A fly can lay eggs five to six times in its three-week lifespan. That is up to 1,000 eggs, which are preferably laid in food, excrement, compost or garbage.

Prevent the plague of flies: quickly remove leftovers

Flies feed on fermenting organic matter. For example, rotten fruit is an absolute magnet for Flies. But even the remains of fruit juice in glasses standing around or crumbs of pastry on a plate can attract flies. That’s why you should also make sure that you always cover food in your apartment and don’t leave dirty dishes lying around for long. Because flies are not only annoying, they can also transmit diseases. Because the insects like to settle on animal excrement, they can pick up germs there and transmit them to humans and animals.

Three methods of fly control

But even with the most scrupulous hygiene: Especially in rural areas you cannot completely shield yourself from the buzzing nuisances. There are three main methods to get rid of the beasts:

1. You can drive them away with scents,
2. hunt armed with fly swatter or
3. set traps for them.

Build fly traps yourself

You can easily build two very effective fly traps yourself:

1. Dissolve ten sweetener tablets and some sugar in a small bowl with 50 milliliters of water. The mixture is poisonous to flies.
2. A cocktail of three parts fruit juice, one part vinegar and two parts water with a few drops of washing-up liquid has a similarly good effect.

The latter reduces the surface tension of the liquid. Upon contact, any fly immediately sinks and drowns.

You can also easily make fly paper yourself:

1. Saturate a sheet of blotting paper with a mixture of syrup and ground pepper.
2. Let everything dry.
3. Lay out the paper in the apartment.

Alternatively, you can also cut the blotting paper into strips and then hang them up in sensitive places in the apartment. The flies are attracted and then stick to the flypaper.

keep flies away

Fly screens and curtains

If you don’t feel like building traps and replacing them regularly, you don’t have to put up with the annoying flies. With a few uncomplicated but very effective measures you can get the fly problem under control. The most effective method is not to let the flies into the house in the first place. Fly screens, for example, help here . They can be retrofitted to almost all windows and offer simple and effective protection. Fly curtains are a good choice for balcony and terrace doors.

Drive away flies with scent and plants

You can also keep the animals away with plants. Plants that repel flies include, for example

• Basil,
• geraniums,
• nasturtium,
• Lavender,
• Peppermint,
• castor bean plants,
• Tomatoes,
• lemon balm and
• lemon verbena.

Furthermore, flies generally do not like strong scents such as lemons studded with cloves. They thus form a natural scent barrier.

Tip
A carnivorous plant is also suitable for the apartment. Insects such as bluebottles and fruit flies and sometimes even mosquitoes are attracted to the plants, stick to them and then die there or are consumed by the plants. In your garden you can also keep the carnivorous plants. However, they should be big enough to survive the winter.

If you want to prevent a plague of flies in the long term, you can add a little laurel oil to the wall paint when painting the rooms, the balcony or the walls around the terrace. The scent keeps flies away.

If that is too time-consuming for you, you can also spread a few bunches of mint or lavender around the room. This scent is also said to be unpleasant for flies.

• Rinse trap and denture cleaner: How to fight fruit flies

Be careful when venting

Flies prefer to be in the sun. Therefore, when airing, you should only open windows that are on the shady side of the house or have a fly screen.

It also makes sense to ventilate when it’s raining or very windy outside. Insects are then often less active. However, caution is advised in the event of a storm or rain shower. Because at that time the crawling animals are looking for more protection. If you ventilate now, the risk of flies and other insects entering your house is very high.

Source:uslifestyler

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