What has happened to fly spray?

[nigel jones 5Participant @nigeljones5]

I remember as a child watching a program which demonstrated how the effectiveness of said spray was measured – quick blast in sealed room and almost all fiies dead quickly – go forward 30 years and im in my caravan in sunny france, got some flies inside so got me some Raid from SU, closed all windows, half emptied the can, closed door and went out for the day. Returned to find all flies thriving! I swear, short of hitting them with the can it had no effect at all. I recall a very distinctive odour with fly spray, a nasty smell – no longer, its now scented with flowes. Is this more elf n safety gone mad?

[nigel jones 5Participant @nigeljones5]

[Mick B1Participant @mickb1]

This one is a favourite on several forums, and the Safety Elves usually get the blame.

But I was spraying fies from a nearly-empty can of Raid back in the heatwave and they were dying in seconds, as quickly as Cooper's used to kill them in the 60s.

The theory I've come to is that the carrier fluid (quite possibly water) evaporates inside the can more easily than the active poison – pyrethroid or whatever it is – so that as a can ages and empties, the concentration of the insecticide increases.

[Mark RandParticipant @markrand96270]

It's entirely possible that some populations of houseflies have become resistant to pyrethroid insecticides. After all it's happened with many greenfly and whitefly populations.

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Remember the yellow Vapona blocks?

I suspect generations of farmers suffering the disintegration of their nervous systems caused by sheep dip etc. has had a knock on effect on home pesticides.

This year we have had a total plague of mosquitos, as in one day stopped counting at fifty bites. We still have a few coming in the house.

I did have an experiment with the flea spray for dog beds etc. in the bathroom (someone left the light on and window open after dark). I came back ten minutes later and the bath was full of little bodies…

Neil

[Mick HenshallParticipant @mickhenshall99321]

I am usually beset by a single fly, after trying the best part of a can it eventually expires then almost immediately replaced by another fly, I am sure they are lined up in a distribution system wjhich releases one at a time just to get right up my nose, or perhaps it is the original fly which I didn't kill in the first place

Puzzled of Dorset

Mick

[FarmboyParticipant @farmboy]

Back at the dawn of time we used to have a gallon can of Coopers and fill a proper fly spray pump gun with the oily yellow liquid to spray the cows before milking in summer. After a few minutes there were expiring flies all over the place. A hot day when the flies were biting could make milking time quite exciting if we didn't spray

More recently we were using a fly repellant on the cows, which worked amazingly well.

In the house, Raid has no effect whatsoever. Kybosh (sold in most garden centres around here) is the best I can get these days but it seems to be less effective on flies this year. One puff is enough to terminate a wasp though . . . for now, anyway.

Mike.

[ronan walshParticipant @ronanwalsh98054]

Nothing does what it is supposed to anymore, paint stripper does not strip paint anymore, fly spray as far as i can tell is deodorant for fly's underarms. Seeing as terrorists use all sorts of ordinary household products to make explosives, i would not be surprised if in the near future you need a licence to buy a pint of milk.

[Ady1Participant @ady1]

Those camping coils were quite good but can't be used while you're in the room

Lasted 2 days in a tent in the highlands once to stop ourselves being eaten alive but the fumes were killing us

Every morning you woke up surrounded by dozens of midge bodies and a huge faux hangover

Bring back DDT, them were days

[Trevor Crossman 1Participant @trevorcrossman1]

I'm quite surprised that although concern is often voiced on these Forum pages about using various chemicals and other toxic substances in their workshops/sheds, folk seem to be quite happy to spray toxic stuff around in their houses! Flies can be dealt with by safer methods than by filling your air with poisonous aerosols, yes I know that the manufacturers say they're safe, just as so many other good old products were!!

At least Grandad's old Flitgun ( remember them!) and gallon can of DTD in his shed is long , long gone and good riddance too . It killed all known flies DEAD! and pretty much anything else that that was in the vicinity too.

Trevor.

[pgk pgkParticipant @pgkpgk17461]

We're resigned to flypapers here.. all the other locals use them too… sprays totally ineffective. It's just a tad gruesome when you forget where a strip is hanging and get it tangled in your hair – trying to comb a few dozen sticky flies out..

pgk

[Brian GParticipant @briang]

Electric fly swat from Poundland – the thrill of the chase (and the basis of an electrostatic flocking device).

Brian

[Speedy Builder5Participant @speedybuilder5]

HAVE YOU EVER THOUGHT WHY THE POPULATION OF HONEY BEES IS NOW DANGEROUSLY LOW ??? All of these "harmless sprays" that only kills flies and wasps (not bees of course) leak into the eco system along with farmer's agriculture chemicals and then we wonder why there are no bees. We bring this problem on ourselves at our own peril. A good old fly swat is all you need and a bit of tissue to clean up afterwards.
Nuff said.
BobH

[Clive HartlandParticipant @clivehartland94829]

I have found a way to kill the bad insects, simples, a spray bottle and tap water plus a teaspoon of wash up liquid. put the wash up liquid in last of course, set the spray to fine mist and whhen the insect is in the window give him the good news. The surfactant gets into the breathing spiracles and drowns the insect No danger, no fuss and will kill even the most ferocious insect. Good on Aphis and Ants, in fact any creepy crawly. You even get to clean the iside of the windows too. If you set the spray to a jet you can get hard to reach insects as well.

[not done it yetParticipant @notdoneityet]

Some of the effectiveness of insecticides against insects has since been found to be toxic to all life. Even the latest round of insecticides harp back to the nerve agents used in warfare. It is, of course , claimed to be perfectly safe to humans but, as always, this has not been proven. Nothing more than expected of bayer and co. They developed nerve agents for warfare and are now waging war on all insects – and likely us, too, eventually. They would not like their profits, from these poisons, being reduced or removed.

All pesticides are toxic to some degree – few are truly selective (and readily bio-degraded).

Think DDT, lead-, arsenic-, mercury- compounds (and others), paraquat, diquat, agent orange, many others, and now glyphosate (round-up and clones). Think, too, that virtually all insecticides have been found to be toxic to life, some time after their introduction and subsequently banned as dangerous. So what are the odds of neonicotinoids (the nerve agent insecticides) being no different?

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Posted by Brian G on 17/09/2018 05:53:30:

Electric fly swat from Poundland – the thrill of the chase (and the basis of an electrostatic flocking device).

Brian

I looked up the part number for the spark generator I have put aside for an IC engine. It came up as for fly swatters.

To be honest, if you've ever seen a field full of dried up cowpats or noticed that your windscreen doesn't get coated in dead flies any more I'm surprised we get any of these pests at all…

I suspect houseflies, mosquitos and midges live in habitats (wetlands and bins) away from most of the nasty pesticides, while bees, butterflies and hoverflies (etc.) are more vulnerable.

Nei

[Gordon WParticipant @gordonw]

I favour spiders for fly control, warm water and washing -up liquid for aphids etc. For outside biters ,midges and similar ,a wiff of diesel keeps them away. Also the local girls are attracted, they think you are a farmer.

[Clive HartlandParticipant @clivehartland94829]

I have for some years used a yellow, sticky on both sides, a card in the greenhouse. mainly for white fly but i notice it also catches anything else that flies. Bought from a garden center and one card lasts for a couple of years.

I will have to find the packet and name it so you can perhaps buy it too.

What i hate are those BIG black flies that come in and cruise back and forth barely missing you, with the dog in hot pursuit, banging at the window and leaping up at them. Then, sitting on the floor savouring it and devouring it.

[Ron LadenParticipant @ronladen17547]

We gave up on sprays and have gone with old fashioned sticky fly papers, must admit they are a bit unsightly but you can place them in a corner so not so noticeable. We found that the new sprays just dont work like the old stuff.

We have a rat baitbox at the bottom of the garden, we back onto fields and come the winter the rats are attracted to the spillage from the bird feeders. We used to buy a box of 50 sachets of rat poison from our local farm supply shop, but now we cant. The new rules means unless you are a registered user i.e. like a farmer and the like you can only buy 6 small sachets at a time, and of course it works out much more expensive.

I tend to agree with Speedy though, a lot of these chemicals need to be controlled or banned and not readily available, they are not helping the planet one little bit.

[Mick B1Participant @mickb1]

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 17/09/2018 09:34:10:

…

…noticed that your windscreen doesn't get coated in dead flies any more I'm surprised we get any of these pests at all…

Neil

I thought that happened quite suddenly in the late '80s, and put it down to improved aerodynamic design in windscreens.

[Andrew TinsleyParticipant @andrewtinsley63637]

I remember a chap who was a Chindit in Burma. He said that Orde Wingate wore a topee and had a Flit gun which he used regularly. Must have worked for him, but goodness knows what else he killed.

Andrew.

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Good old Friedrich Nietzsche had it right when he said 'That which does not kill us makes us stronger'. Or you might prefer Herbert Spencer's 'survival of the fittest'. Both sayings derived from Darwin's concept of 'Natural Selection' – generations either adapt to their environment or become extinct.

Populations exposed to poisons demonstrate the effect well. When poison is applied, the sensitive organisms are killed leaving only survivors who are less vulnerable. Their offspring inherit the resistance. If repeated over many generations, you may end up with creatures that are completely immune to the poison.

Insects are annoying but the effect is already dangerous to humans for another reason. We think we've defeated the common infectious diseases that once kept death rates high – diptheria, typhoid, cholera, typhus, gonorrhea, syphilis, tetanus, leprosy, pnuemonia, tuberculosis etc. Actually, the bacteria that cause these diseases are only being kept at bay by antibiotics. Unfortunately all these bugs have developed antibiotic resistance and we are running out of ways to control them. The type of Pencillin deadly to bugs in 1945 is now ineffective. Unless someone comes up with something new most of the old epidemic diseases will be back. Quite likely your local hospital is already struggling with outbreaks of MRSA, streptococcus, C Difficile and others.

Another major problem with powerful insecticides is that Sod's Law applies – you kill all the wanted insects like Ladybirds and Bees and end up surrounded by super-blowflies.

Dave

[Swarf, Mostly!Participant @swarfmostly]

I'm not saying I believe this but it's cheap so I'm trying it anyway!

A friend told me they'd kept the wasps away from a family barbecue by deploying a few 'Waspinators' around the barbecue site. The Waspinator resembles a nest, see Amazon. The makers claim that wasps are territorial and stay away from the site of an existing nest.

Some years ago I had a 3 inch wasp nest hanging from the workshop ceiling. It didn't get any bigger or show any activity so I figured the insecticide in the treated timber had been the end of the wasps as they gathered their building material. (Have you ever sat quietly beside a fence or other wood while a wasp is gathering? Their chewing as they gather the wood fibres is quite audible.)

More recently, I had to expel a queen wasp that was investigating the inside of my workshop. So I bought a couple of Waspinators and hung one up in the workshop. So far, so good.

I do have some reservations – the instructions claim that a Waspinator installed in the roof space of a house will deter wasps from nesting there. It caused me to wonder if this means wasps can see in the dark?!?! Or are they impregnated with some pheromone?  (That's the Waspinator, not the wasps! )

Best regards,

Swarf, Mostly!

Edited By Swarf, Mostly! on 17/09/2018 11:14:48

Edited By Swarf, Mostly! on 17/09/2018 11:16:56

[SamsarandaParticipant @samsaranda]

I used a waspinator in our garden next to a plum tree last year, no wasps, all the fruit intact, this year didn’t hang a waspinator and the wasps had a field day with the plums, demonstrates that in my situation it worked.

Dave W

[Tony Pratt 1Participant @tonypratt1]

Posted by SillyOldDuffer on 17/09/2018 10:24:37:

Good old Friedrich Nietzsche had it right when he said 'That which does not kill us makes us stronger'.

I always think of Polio when I hear this statement

Tony

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