|
There are many different species of fly that live in Houston, but only two kinds usually present a problem for people, house flies and fruit flies.
Both of these types of flies are commonly seen around Houston. These flies will feed on any decaying organic matter, and a city of four million people produces enormous amounts of that. The garbage cans and dumpsters across the city are a feast for flies.
All flies can breed at a remarkable rate, with a single female of some species able to lay up to 9,000 eggs in her lifetime. Once they hatch, flies depend on warm temperatures to reach maturity. So with the plentiful food and warm weather in Houston, fly populations can explode very quickly here.
Keeping flies out of your home is a big part of stopping a fly infestation. Make sure that doors and windows are all tightly sealed and that window screens don't have any holes. Promptly remove any food waste from the house, and keep garbage cans tightly covered. Even with these measures, in a tightly-packed city like Houston there can be an open dumpster full of flies a block away, and so flies coming into your home is almost inevitable.
Flies have lived for a long time in close proximity to humans, and house flies have developed a strong resistance to many common over-the-counter insecticides. Because of this, serious fly infestations usually require professional pest control to effectively eliminate the problem.
Eliminating fruit flies can usually be done with limiting their access to sources of food in the home and keeping the kitchen clean. Making sure that any containers containing honey, vinegar, molasses, or other sweeteners are clean and well sealed will also reduce the chances of fruit flies coming in to your home. But, because they will infest food and food-preparation areas, treating chronic infestations should be done with caution because of the possibility of contaminating food with insecticides. For persistent fruit fly problems, call a pest control professional who can safely treat the infested area.
The can make you sick. House flies spread disease so easily because they feed on garbage and their bodies are covered with tiny hairs, making them an ideal carrier for bacteria. The bacteria that breed in a garbage can or dumpster will cling to a fly's body when it lands, and then drop off again when the hairs on a fly's body brush up against another inviting area, quite often human food. Flies also cary a tremendous number of microorganisms in their intestines. Flies eat by vomiting up stomach acid on their meal and then sucking it up through a straw-like organ on their faces when the acid softens the food. Unfortunately, this also introduced a tremendous number of bacteria from the fly's stomach onto whatever it's eating
