Create a no fly zone at your holiday feasts



Festive cooking often uses the aroma of cloves and cinnamon to bring the scent of the holiday season into the home. South African's celebrating in the heat of summer can also benefit from using the same spices and scents to help deter flies from ruining their holiday gatherings.
CLOVES
Cloves are aromatic dried flower buds of a plant named Syzygium aromaticum. The little, stemmed flowers are known to have insect repelling properties, particularly against flies and mosquitoes, the major banes of summer holiday-maker’s comfort outdoors.
Apparently, the pesky flying insects can’t stand the smell of cloves, especially when used with lemon or another citrus.
The familiar holiday hanging nosegays made from cloves pushed into the skin of a lemon or orange and sprinkled with cinnamon not only is a great holiday scene setter but will also prevent flies from joining your party.
LEMON
Lemon juice can also help deter ants, and their acidic property masks the scent trails left for other ants to follow. To use lemon and clove together cut a lemon into half and insert 7 to 8 cloves in each half of the lemon making sure the scent-laden bud remains upwards.
Put the clove filled lemons on a plate placed near points of entry for flies like windowsills to keep them outside your kitchen or dining area.
If you are hosting a party outdoors you can also put cloves in a muslin bag or cheesecloth to hang near fly infested areas.
PLASTIC BAG TRICK
It might sound rather odd, but the old wives tale about hanging plastic bags filled with water near entrances of your home seems to actually work.
According to anecdotal evidence, when you hang these bags on the entrances of your house, flies will not come in although the reason why this works seems unclear at best.
Some people suggest it plays havoc with the multifocal eyesight of flies, flies seem to think the water bags might be spider’s webs so avoid them. Another reason suggested is that the reflection from wa-ter disorients the flies and creates an optical illusion for them making them disoriented and causing them to fly into the bags.
This is said to happen more readily when shiny items such as coins or glitter are added to the bag of water hung in any outdoor entrance where they can reflect sunlight.
PLASTIC BOTTLE FLY TRAP
A trap made from any discarded plastic cool drink bottle is easy to make and is an effective trap for houseflies which can be reused as needed.
In contrast to the fly deterrents above, this one works by attracting flies with the scent of a bait which is put into the bottom of the bottle which has the top half cut off and put back in upside down like a funnel allowing the flies to enter the trap to get to the bait but not leave.
You can use a variety of baits, from old food to rotting fruit, to minced meat, to just sugar water, and it is a good idea to mix the bait with water that will drown the flies.
You will need to clean out the trap and replace the bait every few days as this type of trap can start to smell bad after some time.