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Controlling flies etc.


stegra

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22 minutes ago, 36national said:

lifes a bitch innit

Right now I'm drinking £3.50 plonk from Asda so no great loss, but once my situation allows for a more upmarket tipple, no doubt I will consider life to, indeed be, a bitch.

I shall of course, ignore the fact that I was born at probably the best time in history into one of the most affluent and privileged societies ever to have existed (until about a year ago); and just to rub salt into the wound, with white skin to a middle-class family.

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11 hours ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

Have you tried putting a sign up "NO FLIES"..??

The CaRT approach. All problems can be fixed with yet another sign.

This will be bad for the topic originators veggie karma, but how about going small game hunting with a fly gun? Doesn't work on midges as they are too small, but great for house flies, wasps and horse flies. Works like a traditional rolled up newspaper, but without the splatter.

Jen

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On 22/07/2017 at 08:26, Jen-in-Wellies said:

The CaRT approach. All problems can be fixed with yet another sign.

This will be bad for the topic originators veggie karma, but how about going small game hunting with a fly gun? Doesn't work on midges as they are too small, but great for house flies, wasps and horse flies. Works like a traditional rolled up newspaper, but without the splatter.

Jen

 

Good suggestion.

To help with the veggie karma, I wonder if the spring could be weakened so the fly is simply knocked temporarily unconscious instead of killed. Then the stunned flies could be gathered up, placed in a fly-safe container of some sort then transported several miles away for humane release.

That should work I reckon.

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Flies drive my dog barmy so this year I bought some of those sticky fly papers, the ones you hang up and twist and pull to unravel.  They use a pheromone to attract the flies to it.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01LY7O55T/ref=pe_385721_51767431_TE_dp_1

 

They look a bit unsightly but do a reasonable job of catching both the tiny midges as well as quite a few houseflies. I don't have loads of them hanging throughout the boat, just one near the middle. It's not perfect as it won't catch them all but it has certainly greatly helped to keep the numbers down, especially the midges.

I also use a fly spray on occasions. One mistake people make is that they expect a fly spray to kill the fly immediately so they spray excessive amounts of it everywhere, but just a short burst in the vicinity of a fly will usually be sufficient to kill a fly within 5 minutes or so.

 

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10 hours ago, stegra said:

Right now I'm drinking £3.50 plonk from Asda so no great loss, but once my situation allows for a more upmarket tipple, no doubt I will consider life to, indeed be, a bitch.

I shall of course, ignore the fact that I was born at probably the best time in history into one of the most affluent and privileged societies ever to have existed (until about a year ago); and just to rub salt into the wound, with white skin to a middle-class family.

Don't worry in about a year and nine months ish it will start getting better again ;)

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12 hours ago, MrBeethoven said:

If I'm outside drinking beer I usually put a coaster or beermat on top of my glass*

I

We do this too (though, oddly, if we're having a drink on the boat the flies don't tend to bother us, whereas if we're sitting in our river garden, they do). We may have the efficient Cropredy house martin squad to thank.,

THis is the origin of the Spanish "tapas", or so a Spaniard told me. Originally not edible, a tapa (which translates as "lid") was a piece of stale bread placed on top of one's glass to deter insects from dropping in for a drink. Only later did they get the idea that the lid should be edible (daft I call it, as if you ate it you no longer had a lid!)

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It won't kill them but if you want to reduce &  keep most away a handful of Garden Mint picked & scrunched up to let the smell filter out, even seems to work for a time after the mint has dried up & died  a scunch every couple of days revives the smell & no chemicals + you can grow a pot to keep it ongoing

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I found that revarnishing the front doors to my boat seemed to attract flies. Every time I came to put another coat on I had to scrape a dead stuck fly of the previous coat :mellow:

 

 

17 hours ago, MrBeethoven said:

If I'm outside drinking beer I usually put a coaster or beermat on top of my glass*

I'm no expert on wine but I suspect this insect deterrent method may work for that as well.

* Note: I do remove it briefly each time I take a swig, otherwise things get messy and wasteful.

I once got banned from a pub for trapping wasps that had entered my empty glass by putting another empty glass on top. Got to about 4 glasses on top of each other before the barmaid came to collect the empties and went mad at me.

I tried pointing out that if she had collected the empties a bit quicker it wouldn't have happened, but she wouldn't listen. :mellow:

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19 hours ago, stegra said:

Ha. Been vegetarian for over 20 years, hence my instinctive reluctance to kill them. But if they're going to drown themselves in my wine anyway and imperil my vegetarian status, I'm happy to consider alternative methods of dispatch.

Hope you realise that most wine is not suitable for vegetarians, fish bladders and gelatin being two of the most common products to 'clear' a wine.

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52 minutes ago, Starcoaster said:

I got my hands on a label maker from my work about a decade back and naturally, felt the need to label everything in my home. I did a sticker for the catflap saying "please wipe your paws" but they didn't pay attention to that either. :( 

Our cats are most upset, as I replaced their catflap with a louvre vent last year. Doesn't stop them trying to get in it though :)

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