House Fly Solutions

Appearance:

Houseflies are 3/16 to 1/4 inch long, mostly dull gray, with females being slightly larger than males. The face has 2 velvety stripes, each silver above and gold below. The thorax has 4 narrow black longitudinal stripes on top. Houseflies have sponging-sucking mouthparts for consuming liquids.

Mature larvae (maggots) are 1/4 to 3/8 inch long, eyeless, legless, greasy-white and spike-shaped, tapering towards the head from the large rounded rear segment. The pointed head contains a pair of dark mouth hooks. The larvae breathe through a pair of pores (spiracles) in the widened rear segment.

Diet:

Wide variety of food, including human food, animal food and carcasses, garbage and excrement.

Solutions:

What you can do: Housefly control is a 5-step process that includes identification, inspection, sanitation, mechanical control, and insecticide application. The first 4 steps should be a cooperative effort involving the customer and Peoria Pest Eliminators pest management professionals. The fifth step is the responsibility of the Peoria Pest Eliminators technician:

1. The first step is to determine that the problem is house flies.
   
   
2. Inspection involves locating the fly breeding and larval developmental sites. It is sometimes helpful to do this at night when the flies are resting near their food and/or larval developmental sites.
   
   
3. Sanitation involves the removal or elimination of the larval developmental sites. This may involve the timely emptying and cleaning of garbage receptacles to rendering the fly problem so that mechanical and insecticidal measures will be more effective.
   
   
4. Mechanical controls consist of garbage receptacles with tight-fitting closures, tight-fitting windows and doors, windows securely screened if they can be opened, doors with self-closures, sealing around all utility penetrations through exterior walls, screening all vents securely, and the strategic installation of air curtains.
   
   
5. A Peoria Pest Eliminators technician using appropriate materials will perform an application outdoors; this includes the treatment of dumpsters, treatment of vertical walls and door jams adjacent to dumpsters and other breeding sites. Indoors, the use of residual materials on fly resting surfaces away from food preparation surfaces may be appropriate. However, applications of pyrethrum aerosols (i.e., "fogging") to knock down adult flies will provide only temporary control and will not prevent breeding and re-entry of houseflies and other fly species indoors. The strategic placement and subsequent monitoring of insect light traps (ILTs) and scent lure sticky-surfaced traps can be performed and by the technician to help reduce numbers of flies that get indoors.