Fly control in Grenada
Flies land on waste and then land on food. In a warm climate a batch goes from egg to adult in a week or so, which is why a kitchen can go from a couple of flies to a steady problem inside a fortnight. The flies you can see are the easy part. The job is finding what they are breeding in.
Why spraying on its own fails
- A fly feeds by dropping liquid onto food to soften it, then drinking it back up. Whatever it walked on last goes onto the plate with it, which is how flies spread stomach upsets and diarrhoea.
- In warm weather a fly can go from egg to adult in seven to ten days, so a breeding site refills faster than you can knock the adults down.
- Killing adults treats the symptom. If the bin store, the drain or the compost heap is still producing them, you are back where you started in a week.
- Flies build up resistance to insecticides that get used on them over and over, which is another reason a spray-only routine stops working.
Flies pick up bacteria on their feet and bodies, and carry more in what they regurgitate onto food. That is the route by which they spread diarrhoea and dysentery. The risk is highest where food is prepared or left uncovered, which is why food businesses are held to a standard on this and why we treat a kitchen complaint as urgent.
How to tell you have a problem
- Flies clustering at one window, which usually points at where they are coming from rather than where they want to go.
- Small flies around a particular sink, floor drain or drinks station.
- Dark specks on light surfaces, light fittings and window frames.
- Maggots in or near a bin, a drain or under equipment.
- A sudden burst of large metallic flies indoors, which often means a dead animal in a roof space or wall.
- Flies in the kitchen first thing in the morning, before anyone has opened a door.
Common species here
The common one indoors. Breeds in kitchen waste, animal manure and anything rotting, and it is the one that moves between the bin and the worktop.
Bigger, metallic blue or green. These usually mean something dead or meat waste nearby, often a rodent in a roof space or a wall.
Small, hovering around ripe fruit, drinks and the mop bucket. They breed in the film of residue inside drains and under equipment.
Small and furry, sitting still on walls near a sink or shower. They breed in the gel that builds up inside a drain, so the drain is the job.
How we treat it
We work out which fly it is, because each one breeds in a different place, then we find the breeding site. That means drains, bin stores, floor voids, extract canopies and anywhere water and residue collect.
We deal with the breeding site, treat the surfaces flies rest on, and where it suits the building we fit units that catch them without chemicals near food.
We tell you what has to change to stop it recurring: the bin that needs a lid, the drain that needs cleaning on a schedule, the door that needs a screen or a seal. We put it in writing so it does not rely on anyone's memory.
What you can do yourself
None of this replaces a treatment, but it makes the treatment work better and last longer.
- Keep bins lidded and move them away from doors, and wash them out rather than only emptying them.
- Pour a drain cleaner meant for organic build-up down the drains the small flies gather at, and do it more than once.
- Cover fruit and clear fallen fruit from the yard, which is what draws fruit flies in.
- Fit screens on the windows and doors you want to leave open, and check the ones you have for holes.
- If large metallic flies appear indoors for no reason, look for something dead in the roof or a wall rather than spraying.
- Do not keep spraying the same aerosol at them. It kills the flies in the room and does nothing about the ones still to hatch.
Common questions
Not covered here? Call us on (473) 403-7251 and we'll talk it through.
Because the adults were killed and the breeding site was not. A fly goes from egg to adult in about a week here, so the next batch arrives on schedule. If that is happening, we have not found the source yet and we will come back and keep looking.
Better not, if you have a choice. We work around service where we have to, but a proper job on a kitchen means getting at drains and equipment, so a closed period gives you a better result. Tell us your quiet hours when you book.
Almost always drain flies or fruit flies, and almost always the drain. The gel that lines the inside of a waste pipe is what they breed in, and it has to be removed rather than flushed. Bleach runs straight past it.
Not where we can avoid it. In food areas we lean on finding the breeding site, on proofing, and on units that trap flies without a chemical near a work surface. We will tell you exactly what we are using and where.