If you spent any time in your garden over the weekend, then chances are your house is now the home to a number of irritating flies. Your desire for coolness and your willingness to throw open the doors has come back to haunt you and now, even worse, you've been warned not to kill the pesky things.
As flies, wasps and bees are all important pollinators, if you kill them, you're doing a bad thing to the planet. But ideally, they'd be outside and not flying past your ears when you're trying to sleep. Or landing on your sandwich in the kitchen while you're making it. Gross.
So what can you do? Well, experts have come up with a guide on how to deter flies from living with you using no chemicals and nothing harmful to anyone. Apparently flies absolutely hate the deliciously scented herbs basil and mint, so if you place those plants around your home, flies will be absolutely disgusted.
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You've probably pushed your supermarket trolley past the fresh herbs section - but if you stop and grab a couple for the mint or the basil. You can get these for as little as 65p from Asda, or £1.30 from Ocado, or for around £1 at most good garden centres. Cleaning experts at Tap Warehouse have revealed how to prevent flies from hanging around in your kitchen this year.
Polly Shearer, explains “Heat causes an increase in flies and means that house flies are more likely to multiply in hot weather!" This could see tens of thousands of flies buzzing around BBQs and kitchens when weather is warm. Polly says “We recommend using preventative measures to stop flies and insects breeding in your kitchen this summer.”
1. Make your own natural fly deterrent spray
Flies hate the fresh herb plants but also essential oils of the same ilk like mint, lemongrass and lavender. Create your own natural fly deterrent spray by adding a few drops of any of these oils to water in a spray bottle. It will also make your kitchen smell glorious.
2. Store fizzy drinks in your fridge
It's not the stickiness of fizzy drinks that flies enjoy, they're actually attracted to the carbon dioxide too so if you leave these drinks out, you'll find flies flock to them. Wipe up any spills and keep drinks put away in the fridge.
3. Baking soda
What goes on in the bin, stays in the bin. That's the hope anyway. But the rotting of food process speeds up during the summer and it can attract more flies. Sprinkle baking soda at the bottom of your bin before putting in a new bin bag and that should absorb any smells and leaks.
4. Do the dishes
Who can be bothered, right? But if you don't clean your dishes and leave them hanging around on the sink, then you can expect more flies. Get them washed, dried and put away as soon as possible.
5. Keep leftovers fully sealed
Don't leave your warm leftovers out on the side and uncovered or.... you guessed it... FLIES. Make sure you cover them while they cool and then put them fully sealed into the fridge.
6. Use apple cider vinegar costing as little as 80p to deter fruit flies
This deterrent works well on fruit flies. Fill half a glass with apple cider vinegar and cover it with cling film with some small holes poked through. Fruit flies will enter the glass and then you can let them free outside.
