Fly pest control

COMBAT FLIES

The most effective and significant step in regulating flies is sanitation. It is important to keep all outdoor garbage areas safe. Before being deposited in trash receptacles or dumpsters outside, waste should be drained and covered in plastic bags. Odours can be minimised by storing garbage in bags, thereby attracting fewer egg-laying flies. (Reduce enticing odours by frequently washing out food products from waste bins and properly washing them.)

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Dispose of all possible breeding products, such as decaying straw or mulch, compost, refuse and excrement of animals. Stop wet pet foods that have been left outside for many days. Flush the carcasses of dead birds and animals. All future breeding material should be thinly scattered in the field and allowed to dry to avoid the growth of flies.

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Dispose of aged, muddy, lawn clipping piles, weeds, manure piles, old soaked hay or straw bales and other debris of that kind. Waste piles should be coated with black plastic that heats the organic matter, killing the growth of flies.

Keep meals wrapped and shielded from flies once consumed at picnics and cookouts. Remove the overripe fruits from the soil to ferment. Within a day or two, flies can travel several miles, sometimes coming from unsanitary sites.

In both homes and waste disposal facilities, drain flies often emerge unexpectedly and mysteriously, becoming a nuisance. Adult flies will become so numerous indoors that, particularly in the basement, they cluster at walls, dark lampshades at night, fall into food and collect around toilets, bathtubs, washbasins and floor drains. They mar fresh paint and plug sewage filter beds (intakes and drains) outside, going into people's eyes, ears and nose in the city. Inhaling fragments and dust of dead flies can cause bronchial asthma. Since these flies originate in dirty environments, the transmission of human health illnesses is likely.

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Identification

Adult drain flies are thin (5 to 6 mm long), fluffy, dark or greyish insects with thinly covering fur on the body and legs. The antennae are long (13 segments), with a whorl of long hair having a "bulbous swelling" in each segment. Wings are kept roof-like over the body when at rest, looking too large for the body, creating a moth-like look. Eggs are thin, brown or cream-coloured and are laid in 10 to 200 irregular masses. The larvae are legless, about 9-mm long, worm-like and grey, slightly darker at both ends.

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Life Cycle 

In dirty, shallow water or intensely moist organic solids, drain flies replicate. Eggs, larvae and pupae can be found in the muck, mud, or gelatinous film that frequently accumulates in houses, or in waste treatment beds, septic tanks, and damp compost on the sides of drains and overflow pipes. They were also contained in bins of filthy trash, rain buckets and tree holes.

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Control Measures

Drain flies do not bite humans but, by their presence in large numbers, may become a pest. It takes constant effort often to remove an infestation in the house. Focus on clearing larval breeding sites from floor drains, toilets, washing basins, bathtubs, etc. A nearby filter plant is often the cause of the problem.