Check your kitchen, bathrooms, basement, trash cans, litter boxes, and drains for these insects. Many flies are also attracted to light, so look for them near sources of light in your home at night.
Flies usually find moisture around garbage or another source of food. Keep garbage cans sealed whenever you aren't using them. Take out all your garbage every night before bed. Rinse out and dry containers before disposing of them.
Flies are attracted to dirty and decaying things in your home, and can often be found around garbage cans left uncovered or fermenting fruits on countertops. You can prevent them by limiting their food supply or setting up a simple insect trap. Just one fly in your home can lay eggs, leading to hundreds more flies.
Therefore, if you find that you suddenly have a lot of flies in your house, chances are there's decaying matter somewhere. No matter how clean you keep your house, you probably have something rotting somewhere. For example, garbage cans and garbage disposals. These spots are prime breeding sites for flies.
Door Traffic
One of the main reasons flies are getting into your home when the windows are closed is because you may have a lot of door traffic. If you and other people consistently go in and out of a door, this is prime time for flies to enter your home.
First, check your screens and windows for holes, and remind your family to close the door behind them. Then, make sure your house is clean. House flies are attracted to things that make you go "ew," like pet waste, drain gunk (especially if you have a garbage disposal), overripe produce, trash cans, and sticky spills.
House Fly (Musca domestica)
House flies typically lay eggs on animal feces and garbage. White, legless maggots (the larval stage) hatch from the eggs and grow to about ½ inch. When fully grown, maggots crawl away from their food source to undergo the pupal stage.
Cinnamon – use cinnamon as an air freshner, as flies hate the smell! Lavender, eucalyptus, peppermint and lemongrass essential oils – Not only will spraying these oils around the house create a beautiful aroma, but they will also deter those pesky flies too.
Spilt food and beverages in your home
If you're wondering how to get rid of fruit flies as well as house flies, the solution could be as simple as cleaning any spilled food or drink in your home. 'Fruit flies breed on moist, decaying organic matter, such as fruit or spilled beverages.
Before sunset, a sleepy fly will try and find a safe place to rest. Some favourite places are on the undersides of leaves, twigs, and branches, or even in tall grass or under rocks. They need a comfortable place to sleep that will shelter them from the cold, rain and wind.
Anything small enough that can squeeze through the vents and/or cracks will want to get inside. The worst offenders are mosquitos, flies, cockroaches, and spiders, but that will depend entirely upon the size of the voids.
Clean up and break the cycle
Danny recommends regular cleaning of food preparation areas like kitchen countertops. Speedy removal of any pet faeces is also crucial in order to make your home less appealing to flies. It's also a good idea to use rubbish bags and cover rubbish bins to prevent population increase.
Vinegar attracts, not repels flies; however, a container with vinegar and dish soap will function as an attractant trap as the vinegar lures flies to enter the trap and the dish soap will cause the flies to sink and die.
Things Flies Hate
Basil, bay leaf, cedar, cinnamon, citrus, citronella, cloves, cucumber slices or peels, lavender, marigolds, mint, peppermint, pine, rosemary, and vanilla oils and air fresheners are a few popular choices for fly repellents.
You know you've found the breeding site if you see small, dark clusters of spots the size of a pinhead (eggs) or pale-colored larva (maggots) resembling little worms. Once these maggots develop hard cases, flies are about to hatch!
They generally begin to appear in late May, and reach a population peak during August and September, with breeding generally ceasing in October. After this period, flies can “over- winter” as adults or pupae. However, in warmer areas houseflies can remain active and reproduce throughout the year.
Choose from either chemical sprays, household cleaners, or hairspray. Chemical sprays kill flies instantly upon contact, though they contain harsh chemicals. You can also spray the flies with household cleaners, like Windex or Formula 409, or with an aerosol like hairspray. All of these sprays will help you kill a fly.
Flies hate the smell of essential oils like lemon grass, peppermint, lavender and eucalyptus – put a few drops in a spray bottle and use around the house daily. They also hate the smell of camphor (a traditional moth deterrent) which you can buy online, cloves and cinnamon.
A housefly will likely die on its own from stress.
The interior of a home can be disorienting and stressful to a housefly, says Dave. If you've ever seen a fly bouncing on a window trying to escape, that's what will eventually cause its death.
The life expectancy of a housefly is generally 15 to 30 days and depends upon temperature and living conditions. Flies dwelling in warm homes and laboratories develop faster and live longer than their counterparts in the wild. The housefly's brief life cycle allows them to multiply quickly if left uncontrolled.
Flies are more active during the day, but they can be a pest at nighttime as well when they're looking for someplace to sleep. Indoors, houseflies live on floors, walls, and ceilings. It is also common to see house flies near windows.