How to kill flies, natural recipes that will help you to get rid of nasty insects

Flies enjoy the great indoors––it’s warm, there’s often food on offer and the weather isn’t bothersome! They fly in through open doors and windows that don’t have screens and seem to find it hard to fly back out again. Their constant buzzing around is annoying, and even worse, they are potentially unhygienic. If they don’t find their way back outside again, you’ll find lots of fly corpses for the upcoming weeks.

Here are some tried and true methods for getting rid of flies in the house. Flies are the carriers of very deadly diseases, they infest meat and other food items, some of their species also spread food poisoning bacteria like Salmonella enteritidis. The habitat of flies make them perfectly suited for spreading diseases. Fly is a restless insect, it moves back and forth between food and filth and this helps it in spreading infections faster. It is attracted to the food by its sense of smell, however it cannot eat solid food. When it reaches the food it vomits on the solid food and creates a solution of it, then sucks it and thus contaminates the food.

Contents

• The first way: Clean your kitchen and house from uneaten food.
• The second way: Try to find where they live
• The third way: Your own flypaper
• The fourth way : A plastic water bags trick
• The fifth way: Vinegar
• The sixth way: Natural repellents 
• The seventh way: Preventing measures
• Video

The first way: Clean your kitchen and house from uneaten food.

Remove all sources of food or prevent access to food that has to be left out. Flies will hang around the kitchen if there is a food source, so put away or thoroughly cover cakes, cookies, cut fruit, any food no longer being immediately used to prepare dishes, etc. Wash dishes immediately after use. Scrape crumbs and leftovers into the bin or in-sink disposal after eating.

Teach children to wash up and clean up after using the kitchen for food preparation or eating. All your hard work can be undone by one person failing to attend to the need to keep the kitchen clean. Put rotting food outside or in a compost pile. The flies can lay eggs on rotten fruit. Pet food will attract flies wherever the food is left out. Even dry food can attract desperate flies. Always keep pet food dishes clean; particles of food are enough to keep flies happy. Praise your dog or cat if it eats flies. Pets can be a useful source of pest control if they’re interested!

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The second way: Try to find where they live

Check flies’ breeding sources from the table and find the similar areas in your vicinity. Please note that such sources could be located up to 500 – 800 meters away from the place of infestation. This step may take time but then you cannot skip this step as it is the most important step. After you have found a probable breeding source of those flies, clean it up. Wash fly specks off the walls, ground or floor with a borax and water solution.

This removes the trace that flies leave to attract other flies to an area. If it is near some garbage can, then it is better to cover it up and remove garbage at least two times per week. If there is some dead animal or bird near this area, get it removed and make sure that it disposed properly. Try to keep the area clean and dry. Using the above steps, you will prevent new generations of flies from reproducing in your area. But then, you may have to use some other methods to get rid of individual flies that may come till next one month or so (because this is the maximum lifespan of an adult fly).

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The third way : Your own flypaper

The market is flooded with flypapers, sometimes also called fly ribbons, a pest control device. These are made of paper coated with a fragrant, sticky and often poisonous substance which traps flies and other flying insects. The poisonous substance used in these flypapers can be toxic to humans and animals too. So why not use homemade fly papers! They are easy to make and work as efficiently as the commercially available flypapers.

For this recipe you will need a half of a cup of corn syrup, a quarter of a cup of sugar, some brown paper, some thread and scissors. What you have to do: cut 2 inch wide strips from the paper or card. Punch a hoe or two at the top of each strip and thread it to make a loop to hang at the places where flies come. Then you have to mix the corn syrup and sugar. coat one side of each strip with the corn-sugar syrup. If the syrup drips, place a bowl underneath the hanging paper. Now hang these strips where you see the flies most. They’ll get attracted to the sugary syrup and when they land on these strips, they’ll get stuck to it.

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The fourth way: A plastic water bags trick

This is rather interesting and a very effective way to get rid of flies. You just need to have a clear plastic bag filled with water. When you hang this bag at your outdoor entrances, flies will not be able to enter your house. There are at least two reasons explained for this remedy which seems to be beyond logic. One is that the flies are not able to see the water bag as a water bag. Due to their structure of eyes, clear water filled bags are seen as something resembling a spider’s web by the flies. As such, they don’t come near such thing.

The other reason states that the reflection of water is enough to disorient the flies and to create some unexplainable illusion to them. You may also see fruit stand with water bags hanging on their stalls. They do it to keep the flies off their fruits shop. Fill the plastic bag with water. Keep it halfway full with water. Tie a knot at the mouth of the bag to secure it properly. You may also use a thread or a rubber band for the purpose. Now just hang this water filled plastic bags near your entryways, garage doors or any other such outdoor entrances.

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The fifth way: Vinegar

There are several ways of using vinegar against flies. Here are the most effective of them.

• The simplest way to get rid of flies is to remove the cap from the with unfiltered apple vinegar bottle (it doesn’t have to be full — nearly empty will also work). cover the opening in plastic wrap and secure with a rubber band. Then, poke a hole for the fruit flies to enter. They can’t resist the scent of vinegar, and they won’t be able to exit once they’re inside.
• If you find your fruit flies are impervious to the plastic wrap, try adding three drops of dish soap to a bowl of vinegar, and leave it uncovered. The soap cuts the surface tension of the vinegar so the flies will sink and drown.
• Heat the apple cider vinegar. You can do this by using microwave oven or heat it in a pan over your gas burner. If using a jar with lid, make some holes on its lid, big enough to let the flies enter the jar. If you don’t want to destroy the lid, you may also use a funnel. If you can’t find one, make a funnel with paper by folding and stapling it in the shape of a cone leaving a hole at the narrow end. Now fill the jar with heated cider vinegar and place the lid with holes over it. If using funnel, place the funnel on the mouth of the jar with narrow side inside the jar. Now place the jar where flies are seen most of the times. Let it be there for a day. Flies will get attracted to the smell of vinegar and enter the jar through the holes. Once inside, they get trapped. Flies can’t figure it out that they can even fly out from the same hole that worked as their entrance.

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The sixth way: Natural repellents

1. Lavander oil repellent.

Lavender oil is popular as a nerve calming oil but few people know about its excellent insect repelling properties. Lavender has been used by people in the past to protect clothes from moths and other insects. Lavender oil can, in fact, prevent mosquito bites as well as other insects bites. It is just the perfect essential oil which helps control infestation of flies along with repelling fleas, black fly, black beetle, greenfly and white fly too.

Dip the cloth or the sponge in the lavender oil. Now place this cloth or sponge in the tin can, put on the lid and leave it for twenty four hours. After twenty four hours, remove the lid and keep the tin at a place where you see most of the flies in your home. After using, replenish the oil as the air weakens the strength of the oil. cover and store the ting containing your fly repellent. Take precaution not to let it come in contact with your skin as it is in undiluted form.

2. Lemongrass repellent.

This is one remedy that will not only keep flies away from your house but will also keep your home refreshingly aromatic. Flies don’t like the smell of lemongrass just like lavender and many other plants and oils. So, you can use this essential oil got from lemongrass to make your flies spray that also works as room freshener. Pour ten or twelve drops of lemongrass essential oil into your spray bottle.

Now pour hot water over this oil. Shake well to mix both the ingredients. Now spray this all along your doorways and windows or any other space from where flies enter your house. You can also spray it directly on the flies whenever or wherever you spot them, just keep the bottle handy so that you can find and use it easily.

3. Using vodka bags: for some reason flies hate vodka.

They just cannot bear its smell and hence some people use vodka bags to ward off the flies. You can also apply some vodka on your skin (uncovered parts only) to keep flies at a distance, but do this only if you are comfortable with it.

4. Basil is very beneficial for us but flies somehow doesn’t like its fragrance.

You can plant basil in a pot near your doorways to keep away the flies. Not only will this stops flies from entering your house but will also make the surrounding environment healthy as basil is a strong anti-bacterial and anti-viral herb. In India, you can find basil plant in almost every house where they worship it. If you cannot plant it, get some dried basil leaves and tie them up in a cheesecloth or a muslin bag.

Now keep this in flea infested area or hang it near your entrances and windows etc. There are many other herbal plants that can keep flies away from your house. Plant them or use their leaves to repel flies. Here is the list of such flies repelling plants.

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The seventh way: Preventing measures

Using certain herbs to deter flies: Flies do not like the odour of certain aromatic plants, such as elder, basil, lavender and mint.

1. Flies do not like smoke: flies hate smoke, so you can use some kind of citronella candles to get rid of flies quickly. But this method causes air pollution so it is better not to use it.
2. Like vinegar, fruit flies love the smell of wine. Try leaving out an open bottle with a little liquid — the skinny neck will keep the flies trapped.
3. If possible, shut doors to rooms where the flies aren’t (you’ll need to satisfy yourself first that such rooms are actually fly-free). choose one exit for the flies to depart by. Here, let the light shine forth to encourage the flies to head that way. It might be the front or back door, or one particular window. If the flies don’t exit, you can always swat them as they hover around the lit area.
4. Using an electric handheld fly swatter: these are also called fly bats as these resemble badminton rackets. The grid of these fly bats is electrically charged to a voltage of between 1000 and 2500 V Dc by pressing and holding a button near the handle. When a fly comes near the electrodes, a spark jumps through the fly and it gets killed. The best thing about these kind of swatter is that, you don’t have to wait for the flies to land anymore, you can just swat them mid-air.
5. Using carnivorous plants: if you are searching for a very clean way to kill flies then I would suggest you to invest in some carnivorous plants like Venus Fly Trap or Pitcher Plant. These plants are very attractive to look at, and in addition to this they do a steady job of attacking, trapping and digesting flies. In terms of efficiency, and the quantity of flies they can consume, they are certainly not the best but they are the cleanest option as they don’t leave any mess after killing flies.
6. Many people say that they have got success in getting rid of flies with dried orange peel.
7. Flies do not like the smell of cloves, so keeping ten or fifteen cloves on your dining table can be useful to ward off the flies. Alternatively, you could also use clove oil as it may work better than solid cloves.
8. combine a pint of milk, four oz of raw sugar, and two oz ground pepper in a saucepan and simmer for ten minutes. Then, pour into a shallow dish. The flies will be drawn to the mixture and quickly drown.
9. camphor is somewhat like a dry waxy, white substance derived from the wood of the camphor Laurel tree. It has a strong smell that deters flies and other insects. It has been traditionally used in India to purify the surrounding environment as it has strong anti-bacterial, anti-viral and insect repellent properties. It is commercially available in form of small tablets.

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Video

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