Pest control is, without a doubt, the best – if not only – way to handle pests coming onto your property. Setting up a family-safe pesticide barrier, sealing any entrance ways, and so on, all make pest control the only logical choice for getting rid of (and preventing) insects and other pests.

But “control” has its limitations.

Let’s talk about one of those limitations today. Specifically, let’s talk about flies, including why flies are harder to eliminate from a home and what we can do to help.

Flies Fly – And Other Shocking Revelations

The main thing to understand about pest control is that a pest needs to come into contact with the pest control for it to be eliminated. For the vast majority of pests, this is not an issue. Most insects follow some very common pathways to get into a house, and so as long as we treat those areas, we’re going to prevent the vast majority of pests.

Flies, however, fly. They do not come into contact with those areas. Even *inside* of the home, flies do not typically follow any specific patterns. Spiders, for example, do not walk on the ground – which makes it harder for them to come into contact with exterior pesticides – but interior treatments can still be effective because they tend to travel in corners and in specific areas of a property. Treat those areas and spiders can be eliminated.

Flies just fly around anywhere they want. Their behavior is often wild and almost impossible to guess. Though they are still attracted to light, like many other bugs, they do not nearly care as much about being close to light as many other common household insects.

Most Fly Prevention Starts with You

The good news is that flies do not just waltz into a property on their own. They usually fly through open windows, and they do so when there’s something they want – like the smell of food in the sink. So, you can prevent flies by:

• Keeping windows/doors closed with screens closed.
• Cleaning up after old food and garbage immediately.
• Reducing trash outdoors that may attract flies, like open bags in bins.

If you have less flies *around* your property, and less temptation for flies *in* your property, and you make it so they can’t just easily fly in through an open door or window, then your odds of finding flies goes down.

Still, it can be difficult to reduce them using those techniques alone, and of course you’re depending on your pest control company to help reduce flies on your property. So what can *we* do?

• Treat Fly Prone Outdoor Areas – If you find that you’re getting a lot of flies in some specific areas – for example, they keep invading your trash bins – then we can apply treatment to those bins to dramatically decrease the number of flies and maggots (larva) that grow there.
• Exclusion – Sometimes, if we explore a property, we can find openings that need to be sealed. For example, if you have holes in your window screen, or you have too much space between your door and your floor, sealing those areas can help to provide far fewer entrances for flies to enter, decreasing their interior population.
• Sticky Traps – Though not ideal, there are sticky traps called “fly ribbons” that can be effective at reducing the population of flies in the area by causing them to become stuck when they land on it. Flies love landing on handing, flag surfaces, making the sticky traps a popular landing spot, and then they get stuck and pass away.
• Identifying Problem Spots – Because we provide pest control, we can sometimes figure out why these issues are occurring and potentially provide recommendations that can help prevent flies in the future. For example, one time we noticed that there was a break in a sewer line that was leaking fluid into a neighbor’s yard. We mentioned it to the neighbor, who was able to get it repaired, and the flies went away. If we spot these types of problems, we can provide recommendations (if it’s not something we can do ourselves) to help provide further prevention.

In theory, we can also strategically place pesticides (family safe, of course) in places where flies may end up. For example, eventually, my flies climb on windows trying to escape, so if we place pesticides near the corners of windows, flies should eventually touch them and pass away.

Usually, fly problems are short lived. But if you have a significant fly issue, we can help. Reach out to our team today to learn more.