Flying insects are among the most difficult types of bugs to get rid of from your home, since they can easily gain access through open windows and doors, and via cracks in your walls, and are less easily caught than their ground-loving counterparts.
More than this, flying insects are more likely to disturb you outside, since they can easily drift and buzz around head-height, and land on your food and drinks if you’re having a BBQ or choose to dine outside.
So, here are the peskiest flying insects that are likely to be bugging you, and how you should deal with them:
Bees, wasps and hornets.
The golden trio of stinging insects, bees, wasps and hornets are some of the most frustrating bugs to have plaguing your home and garden, since their sting is painful and – in the case of wasps and hornets – often unwarranted. Here’s how you can deal with them:
Indoors: Keep doors and windows shut whenever possible, and consider installing fly screens on windows you keep open often. Moreover, avoid keeping lavender in your home because they are attractive to these insects. Instead, you could opt to keep some basil around, which repels these stinging bugs. Lastly, pest control can be called to inspect your home for any cracks in the walls which they could be entering through (this is an effective preventative measure which can be used to deal with most flying insects).
Outdoors: If you notice numerous wasps, bees or hornets out and about, it’s likely there’s a nest nearby. If you notice this, or if you spot a nest yourself, you should call professional pest control to remove the nest, after which you should see a significant drop in the number of stingers in your yard.
Mosquitoes.
More than being a buzzing nuisance, mosquitoes carry a multitude of diseases, from the Zika virus to dengue fever; mosquitoes can make adults, children, pets and the surrounding wildlife sick. Here’s how you can deal with them:
Indoors: The best thing you can do to keep mosquitoes out of your home is to keep your windows and doors shut wherever possible, and install a fly/mosquito screen- and always remember to wear mosquito repellent.
Outdoors: If you have a surplus of mosquitoes in your yard or garden, the best thing you can do is call professional pest control. Offering a range of treatments, the newest effective technique in outdoor mosquito pest control is having a mosquito drum installed, since only one drum is needed to deplete the population in the surrounding area a.k.a. your house and yard. Having pest control come and treat your yard will also lead to you seeing mosquitoes in your home less and less frequently.
Fruit flies and the Common Fly:
While flies, of all kinds, are reasonably harmless, they’re angering, frustrating, and really unhygienic; you can say goodbye to any food these little pests land on, as it’ll likely be decorated with some nasty bacteria. Here’s how you can deal with them:
Indoors: Make sure to always store food in cupboards, and sealed in containers, and ensure that any spillages are cleaned promptly, since sugar will attract flies into your home. On the same front, especially for ensuring you don’t garner a fruit fly infestation, take the trash out often and clean your bin regularly. Having sticky fly traps by your doors are also great additions especially if you have an area it does not make sense to place a screen to prevent flying insects from entering your home.
Outdoors: While it’s uncommon to see fruit flies in the yard, the common fly can be seen in abundance. Luckily, there are a number of products on the market which you can use to swat these pesky insects away, and deter them from your yard, such as these:
Ladybugs:
While most ladybugs are pretty harmless, unfortunately there are some species which bite, and can be harmful to your pets, such as the Asian Lady Beetle. Moreover, ladybugs are a particularly foul-smelling species of insect. Here’s how you deal with them:
Indoors: If they are the harmless kind, and there’s only one or two and they’re not bothering you, just leave them alone. However, if you want to deter ladybugs from your home then you should limit the number of flowering plants you keep inside, or just outside, the house, as these attract the insects. If they are of the Asian Lady Beetle variety, then simply spray them with soapy water and vacuum them up.
Outdoors: Unlike a lot of other flying insects, if you ‘shoo’ a ladybug away, it will likely leave you alone, as they aren’t confrontational creatures. However, if you want to do everything possible to rid your garden of ladybugs, maybe reconsider the number of flowers you grow in your garden.
So, if you have a flying insect problem and want the bugs gone for good, try out some of these methods and hire a local overland park pest control specialist.