How to Prevent Flies

How to Prevent Flies

It’s no fun to have flies in your home or business, since they can be a nuisance and a health hazard at the same time. Fortunately, it’s not hard to prevent flies from infesting your home, and preventative techniques can often double as treatments if you do end up with a few flies in the house. Here are some best practices for preventing flies from entering and multiplying in your home.

Sanitize

Cleaning isn’t always the most exciting chore to do at home, but it is one of the simplest and most effective ways to prevent fly infestations (or any other insect infestation, for that matter). Here are some specific ways you should sanitize your home to keep flies at bay:

• Wipe down surfaces: Flies are always on the lookout for food scraps and morsels to feed on. Keeping any and all surfaces clear of crumbs and leftovers will prevent these places from becoming a target for flies.
• Take out the trash regularly: Flies—particularly fruit flies—love to get into trash cans, where they can find your food waste and lay eggs in a safe environment. However, if you make a point to regularly take out the trash, these flies won’t have much of a chance to find food or reproduce. It’s especially helpful to have a trash can with a lid on it, so flies won’t find it as easy to get inside a garbage bag.
• Store food properly: In conjunction with both of the above tips, storing food properly is essential to preventing flies. While flies are known to try to eat leftovers that are just sitting out, they are also known to get into pantries and find foodstuffs that aren’t properly sealed. So make sure to put all leftover food into sealed containers or bags and refrigerate them or put them on an elevated shelf in your pantry to avoid attracting flies and other pests.
• Clean bathrooms: Some species of flies, like drain flies, are attracted to the sludgy waste commonly found in pipes and standing water. One of the best ways to keep these flies away is to routinely clean sinks and bathtubs in the bathroom (and the kitchen sink), where moisture can tend to collect and allow mold and mildew to form.
• Clean up after your pets: Many types of flies are attracted to pet food and pet feces, so if you want to prevent your pets from being the cause of a fly infestation, store their food in closed containers and clean up their droppings so flies don’t find them.
• Clean up excess dirt and filth: It’s easy to track in mud from outside or forget to clean places where mold and mildew gather. But paying attention to these small details will also help prevent flies from reproducing inside your home.