Flies

This season we have been inundated with flies flitting around the outside of our house. I have no idea what attracts them or why there are so many this year. But it's gotten really annoying. Last week I bought a couple of fly trap things which are plastic bags with some sort of killing powder in the bottom. You add water to the bag which works with the powder and then hang it up where the flies are worse. Once they get in, they can't get out.

Well, let me tell you these bags work, but they are also the grossest things ever. The flies really are attracted to the bag and get in and in and in and in until the bag is full of dead black flies. And, it smells to high heaven. Just taking it down to dispose of it is just awful.

After going through 3 of them with no end in sight I gave up with the gross-ness. I have to find another way to get these flies away from our front door, inside the garage and back deck. This has to be a banner year for flies.

I looked up what exactly attracts them and none really apply to us. For instance: heat radiating buildings, garbage, animal carcasses, bird droppings, sweet liquids, animal feces and light. If they are attracted to light, why are they on our covered, dark front porch and deck? None of the other items are around the house at all.

I have wasted a lot of energy on the front porch swatting at them with this gadget I bought many years ago. It looks like a small tennis racket, has a battery inside the handle and when you swing at a fly and hit it with the face of the racket a loud snap occurs and you've incinerated the fly. This works if you swing at the fly just right and it's sort of satisfying, but too many flies come and take it's place. And, I'm sure the neighbors wonder what the heck I'm doing.

It is a real pain this year.

Comments

[Pam]

If the flies are attracted to the porch & deck at night, it’s likely because they are attracted by the light shining from inside the house. If a fly is in my house at night, it always ends up in my bedroom where the last light appears inside. Interesting is that if I’m not able to kill it, they always end up dead by my front window which is the only spot where the first light of day appears.