this post was submitted on 12 Aug 2024
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How to catch houseflies? (lemmy.world)
submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by 13esq@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml
71 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

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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[โ€“] mannycalavera@feddit.uk 13 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Get a used spray bottle, one that you can adjust the spray to be narrow or wide angled by screwing unscrewing the cap. Set it to wide angled. Fill the bottle with some water and cleaning solution. Something you wouldn't mind being sprayed about. Surface cleaner is a good bet because you probably already have that around the house to clean with.

Creep up on a fly with this diluted concoction and let rip. It might try and fly away but the wide angled spray plus the slight stickiness of the solution will hamper it's efforts. Watch as it falls to the floor and writhes about in agony as it desperately tries to breathe (flies breathe through their skin which is now clogged with cleaning solution). It's wings will be useless now too as they'll be weighed down by the solution.

Finally with some tissues mop up and squash the little shit. For the first several flies leave them where you let them die as a warning to other flies in the area. After a couple of days you can clean up the bodies.

You're welcome ๐Ÿค—.

[โ€“] otherbarry@lemmy.zip 7 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Agreed, though I've found that usually dousing a fly in water (via spray bottle) is enough to surprise them & get them to drop. Once they've fallen it takes them a bit to dry themselves & get airborne again, that's usually enough time to swat it and finish the job.

That works well if you just have one or a few flies - if you've got a ton of them fly paper is going to work much better.

[โ€“] mannycalavera@feddit.uk 3 points 3 months ago

Oh yeah fair point. Depends how sadistic you want to get mwahahaha! ๐Ÿ˜ˆ

But also after swatting the fly it's nice to give the area a quick clean anyway.