The weather has finally warmed up here and now there plenty of super annoying houseflies. They’re way to fast to swat and have an annoying habit of landing on you.
I’ve tried Google’s suggestion of water/vinegar and a bit of dish soap in a bottle, but they don’t seem to go for it at all.
I’m up for trying anything, please make suggestions!
Edit: Thank you to all for your suggestions. So far I’ve tried the idea of spraying them with surface cleaner which appears to work well
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I have a BUG-A-SALT that attached a laser sight on. It can take out a fly from a few feet away. And it makes it fun.
fellow bug-a-salt owner here. can confirm this works great and makes it fun.
now tell me amore bout this laser sight?
Vacuum cleaner with a wand or a powerful portable vac. You just get the nozzle near the fly and they get sucked in.
My cats take care of most of them.
I slap them mid air when they are slower and with a towel when they fly more erratic and quick.
Satisfying and I get to feed my fly trapWe got one of those electric fly swatters, but the thing is too heavy to swing fast enough to pop flies like you’d want. So on a hunch, I checked YouTube for a trick to make them more effective.
Basically take a styrofoam plate with a little food on it and tape it to the fly swatter, and zip tie the switch down and set it wherever the flies are at their worst. For bait, I just put a smear of ketchup and ranch dressing on a paper towel.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=tDZb2l2A888
We managed to kill over 30 flies in about 2 days. Heads up though, they’re not designed to be left continuously powered on, the batteries will end up dead and leaking after a couple days.
I had to toss the batteries and open up the swatter handle to clean out the battery juice off of the terminals so it won’t rot out.
But hey, aside from the inconvenience with the batteries, the trick just freaking works 👍
I open a window and they fly to it. Then I shut them out.
Move your lightly cupped, relaxed hand behind the fly. Then suddenly accelerate and grab the fly that got startled into flying into your hand by the movement.
Fly strips work. They work even better after catching a few flies (I guess misery loves company!). They’re cheap too.
The vinegar thing is for fruit flies or gnats - it doesn’t really work on typical house flies.
Or… you could use a fly gun. … : D
Warning about those hanging fly traps. I used them and somehow the glue got aerosolized and spread to every surface of my apartment. I never no idea how this happened but everything I own was covered in brown sticky dots. It was a mother fucker to clean.
Toy salt shotgun. Start hunting.
Edit: just saw another comment recommended the one i used to have. Bug-a-salt. It was the only thing that worked when we had something like 200 flies in a tiny 3-bed apt.
Invest in venus flytraps. They’re very loyal pets.
Get a dish towel wet and use that to swat at the fly. The weight of the water and the extra length of the towel let’s you get it going faster than the fly can react.
Play wildly upbeat frantic fly punk music and when they’re all worn out from shaking their little fly asses - nab 'em.
Not sure what kind of beasts you have but some apple cider vinegar and dish soap works like a charm for me. Definitely need to find the source though. Usually it’s some old fruit that got left out somewhere.
You’ll catch some flies (and various other insects) with fly paper. The good thing is that it doesn’t smell.
Never heard of houseflies going for vinegar, AFAIK that’s for fruit flies (and even that is rather tricky IME).
