Banish flies from your home with simple, all-natural remedies
As soon as the good weather returns, so do pesky insects, like flies. In addition to just being an annoyance, flies can carry diseases, and their presence is often seen as a sign of poor hygiene at home. That said, there are remedies you can use to keep flies at bay - read on to find out more:
Sticky traps and chilli pepper
It is never pleasant to have to place traps around the house, but, when you have to, you can use sticky traps. You can buy sticky traps specifically for flies, and they should be placed where these insects tend to "congregate"(such as in the kitchen, or near the windows of the house). These traps will need to be changed as soon as they fill up (or lose their stickiness).
A DIY remedy you can try is a chilli pepper-based spray: this is an all-natural ingredient and will repel flies. To make the spray, you just need to mix a teaspoon of chilli pepper in a bottle of water and spray the mixture near/around doors and windows.
Apple cider vinegar or essential oils to repel flies
JFVelasquez Floro/Wikimedia Commons
Two other anti-fly remedies based on all-natural ingredients, use apple cider vinegar or essential oils.
To use the vinegar, fill a small bowl or glass jar with a mixture of apple cider vinegar and dishwashing liquid in equal parts. Once mixed, drop a little sugar on the surface of the mixture: both the apple cider vinegar and the sugar will attract flies, and the viscosity provided by the dishwashing liquid will make it impossible for the flies to escape drowning in the liquid. As an alternative to vinegar, you can also use beer or a carbonated soft drink (like Coca Cola).
For a natural repellent, you can exploit the scent given off by the essential oils of the following plants:
- camphor
- lemongrass
- mint
- eucalyptus
- cinnamon
To use these oils, simply put them in diffusers. You will probably find these scents pleasing and they will repel flies. Place the diffusers near access points to your home, creating a barrier to flies. Alternatively, you can dilute these oils in distilled water and pour them into spray bottles (to which you can also add one or two tablespoons of ethyl alcohol to facilitate mixing). Usually, 20 drops of oil are added to half a liter of water, but you can increase or decrease this amount.
Other ways to keep flies out of your home
Flies are attracted to our homes by the smells of food cooking (like boiling cabbage, for example), dirty spots (like food residue/spills that have not be cleaned up properly) and the smell of "over-ripe" trash in garbage cans. So, if you notice flies entering your home, you may need to deal with sorting out/cleaning whatever "fly siren call" is attracting flies into your home.
The occasional fly will still enter an impeccably cleaned home, but, by following these measure, you should not be plagued by them!
