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How to catch houseflies? (self.asklemmy)

submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by 13esq to c/[email protected]

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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[–] over_clox 8 points 2 months ago (1 children)

We got one of those electric fly swatters, but the thing is too heavy to swing fast enough to pop flies like you'd want. So on a hunch, I checked YouTube for a trick to make them more effective.

Basically take a styrofoam plate with a little food on it and tape it to the fly swatter, and zip tie the switch down and set it wherever the flies are at their worst. For bait, I just put a smear of ketchup and ranch dressing on a paper towel.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=tDZb2l2A888

We managed to kill over 30 flies in about 2 days. Heads up though, they're not designed to be left continuously powered on, the batteries will end up dead and leaking after a couple days.

I had to toss the batteries and open up the swatter handle to clean out the battery juice off of the terminals so it won't rot out.

But hey, aside from the inconvenience with the batteries, the trick just freaking works 👍

[–] Death_Equity 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It would be simple to make it corded with a wall adapter.

[–] over_clox 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I know right?!

But where do you find a 3 volt DC adapter these days?

[–] Death_Equity 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Well I have like 3 decades of wall adapters collected, so I would dig one out with the right specs lol. You can find the exact voltage and amperage one on Amazon or any number of electronics suppliers.

[–] over_clox 1 points 2 months ago

I do have a spare box of old wall wart adapters put up in storage, I might have to check those someday.

Thankfully not yet though, those two days were enough to kill all the flies we had at the time. 👍