House Flies
Yuk… Flies just bring up that thought of disgusting and nasty. Probably because they frequent dumps, sewers, garbage heaps, and unfortunately among other places our homes.
Fact: House flies are suspected of transmitting up to 65 diseases to humans. Life Cycle of House Flies: Female house flies lay their eggs in decaying matter such as garbage and excrement with horse manure being the preferred breeding medium. These female flies deposit between 100-500 eggs which hatch in 1-2 days to become maggots. Fly maggots feed on the medium in which they have hatched. After molting 3 times the larvae pupates and changes into an adult house fly.
A typical house fly lives 2-1/2 weeks in the summer and can live up to 3 months at lower temperatures. Amazingly, some flies can over winter outdoors in protected locations such as crevices in buildings. Flies usually stay within two miles of their point of origin.
Some of the diseases a common house fly may spread include:
Flies have a very highly-evolved evasion reaction which helps to ensure their survival. It is possible to confuse a fly's evasion system by swatting it with two objects simultaneously from different directions. The holes in a fly swatter minimize the air current which warns the fly of being hit, whilst reducing air resistance and increasing speed of the swat.
Some of the more common types of flies include the following:
Controlling House Flies:
The 4 basic ways to control house flies are sanitation, exclusion, chemical, and non-toxic / non-chemical measures. Each one may have their place depending on the exact situation. You for example would not want to use certain chemicals in a home environment where there is a risk of poisoning humans or pets.
Sanitation – If food sources such as garbage are limited or eliminated there won’t be fly issues.
Exclusion – Keep flies outside with screens and other measures.
Non-Chemical / Non-Toxic – Sticky fly traps, fly swatters and baited fly traps.
Scary Fact: A single female fly at the end of a ninth generation could reach as many as 1,953,000,000 female flies. |