Wipe clean all surfaces in your home, especially in the kitchen, which are soiled or stained by food, beverage, and other unwanted sources of dirt as often as necessary. Make sure that your furniture, fixture, and fittings are clean enough to avoid houseflies.
According to experts, flies are the largest group of insects with particularly houseflies accounting for a significant part. While many people think of flies as merely a nuisance, the reality is that these insects can be responsible for a range of life-threatening conditions. Some conditions and diseases you can contract from houseflies include; food poisoning, typhoid fever, E. coli, cholera, dysentery, yaws, eye infections, and tuberculosis. Yet you find that many households are infested by these disease-causing living organisms.
To help keep families healthy, we share 6 doable methods to get rid of houseflies. Without wasting time, let’s begin with the first tip:
1. Maintain High Hygiene Standards
Most importantly, be sure to empty your trash can once or as many times as necessary daily. After all, trash cans are a major allure for these disease-causing insects. No matter how clean your abode is, keeping trash in the house is going to attract houseflies, thwarting your efforts to get rid of those unpleasant insects.
2. Cover Your Foods
To some people, houseflies may look quite harmless, a notion that I think(to some extent) contributed to the origin of the proverbial phrase “wouldn’t hurt a fly.” But the reality is that these insects aren’t as harmless as they look, thanks to their evil, hard-to-realize agenda.
Have you ever realized that whenever you expose a food item from the covering, flies get attracted and all of a sudden they start lingering around? It’s because the creatures time for the right moment to execute their evil agenda, which is to inject disease-causing microbes into your food.
To avoid that and having houseflies in the house, have all your foods covered and stored in the right places. Let those that are supposed to be stored in the refrigerator go to the refrigerator and those that belong in the cabinets be in the cabinets.
3. Avoid Having Overripe Foods In Your Home
Besides an overfilled trash can, another major allure for houseflies is overripe foods such as fruits and vegetables. In food, an overripe is the precursor to decomposition. At this stage, yeast levels have started to rise, attracting houseflies, which see it as an important source of food.
To avoid having overripe foods in your home, buy foods in quantities you’ll finish quickly, within a few days. If you are shopping for fresh produce you intend to use for a few days(say a week or so), choose options that are not fully ripe to buy you more time. Also, keeping them in the refrigerator is a good way to slow down the ripening process.
4. Spray A Solution Made With Cayenne Pepper and Water
Cayenne pepper mixed with water is a powerful repellent for houseflies. The moment this most-recognized group of insects senses the presence of the mixture in your home, they will keep off.
Actually, this is the method I use at home to keep away houseflies. The best part is that the ingredients it requires(Cayenne pepper + water) are readily available. I assume that you already have running water in your home at least as many households do. For cayenne pepper, you can go to your nearest grocery store or supermarket. Alternatively, you could source it conveniently from your meal kit delivery service that is if you use one.
By the way, meal kit delivery services have hugely helped to reduce the cost and hassle it takes to prepare meals. Options such as Sun Basket and Hello Fresh take the hassle of shopping for food ingredients off of their subscribers’ lives. Besides providing ingredients, these meal kit delivery services go a step further to accompany their meal kits with the necessary recipes for making a dish.
For those who feel like getting started with any, read this quick comparison article for SB and HF. By so doing, you’ll grasp the similarities and contrast between Sun Basket and Hello Fresh including the meal varieties, dietary preference plans, meal prices, and shipping costs.
Before I do forget, Home Chef is a good alternative to SB or HF. If none of the meal kit delivery services above impresses you due to one reason or another, you wouldn’t go wrong with it.
5. Plant Herbs and Flowers
Do you have a garden near your kitchen? If yes, it’s time to plant anti-housefly flowers and herbs. Examples of plants that will do a great job at keeping house flies away from your home include; lavender, marigold, catnip, basil, and bay leaves. Funny enough, houseflies find the scents from these plants unpleasant and repulsing. Even if you don’t have a kitchen garden, you can still have these as indoor plants.
6. Make Use Of An Insecticide or Repellent
Many products are available out there for getting rid of houseflies. Categorized as insecticides and repellents, these products keep flies away from your home, using different approaches. For example, insecticides poison and kill the insects whereas repellents simply give off a smell that repels and makes them avoid your home.
You can get the right insecticide or repellent from your local supermarket or agro vet store. However, we suggest trying a repellent first before considering an insecticide because the latter can pose harm to your family and pet.
Final Thoughts
Thought that house flies are a permanent nuisance that can’t be gotten rid of from the house? Well, think so no more now that we’ve shared a few methods to help drive them away. Maintain high hygiene standards, cover your foods, and do not have overripe foods in your home. Additionally, spray a cayenne-pepper-water solution into the house, plant certain herbs and flowers that repel house flies, or simply use a house fly repellent or killer product. Try these tips and you can thank us later. Good luck with it!
