Flies Be Gone!

Last week we had crews of handymen and painters in the house, and the doors were constantly being opened and closed. At the end of the first day I noticed a couple flies in the house. I did my best to keep the doors closed after that, but the task wasn't a priority for the workmen. By the time all the workers wrapped up for the weekend there were at least six flies that had taken up residence inside.

It used to be that Jackson the cat would make short work of any insect that he came into contact with, but now that he's a senior 17 years old he just sits and watches them go by. I really could have used his help; I didn't have any luck swatting them.

Wikipedia

Having flies in the kitchen makes it feel dirty to me, and I resolved to get rid of them. I stepped up my kitchen cleaning, making sure that there was never any crumbs or dribbles of food on the stove top, counter, or table. Didn't matter. The flies somehow continued to find sustenance and buzz around happily.

Next I mixed up a apple cider vinegar/sugar solution and made a fly trap in a jar covered with a piece of plastic that had a small hole poked on it. The theory was that the flies would find the aroma of the mixture irresistible and drown when they went into the jar to sample it. Didn't work. I watched a couple of flies walk across the plastic to check out what was inside, but none of them were adventurous enough to go in. After two days of waiting for the flies to drown it was time to try something else

My third attempt was to make some homemade fly paper. I cut a brown paper bag into strips, punched holes in the top, and added a loop of twine. After boiling a mixture of sugar, molasses, and water I coated the strips with the mixture and hung them up to dry with a rag underneath them to catch any drips. The mixture was quite sticky, and the flies were supposed to get stuck on the paper. Didn't work. Hubby Tony watched one fly approach a strip, walk on a corner of it, and fly away. The rest of them ignored the temptation. Later in the afternoon Tony hit the strip with his arm while he was cooking dinner. The paper ripped and fell. I threw it in the compost pile and went back to the Internet for more suggestions.

A website I found said that flies don't like the scent of lavender or peppermint oil,. I had both, but found the lavender first. I pulled out my electric diffuser and fired it up. Several seconds later I noticed the nice floral scent, then got busy and forgot about it. It wasn't until Tony and I were eating dinner that I noticed there weren't any flies trying to share our food--and I didn't see any in the kitchen when I was putting dishes in the dishwasher.

The diffuser ran for three hours. When it stopped the flies started buzzing around again annoyingly. Unless I can figure out a better solution I'll just keep trying to swat them and scent up my house.

Five years ago today: Fun In The Mall...For Almost All