Are flies affecting productivity? Lumnia can help

Read our latest blog to find out how a fly problem can affect productivity – and what you can do about it.

Flies can be a huge threat to businesses, especially those operating within the food industry. But even if your business isn’t in the food industry, flies can cause problems. Compared to pests like rodents and cockroaches, flies are responsible for causing the highest number of staff illnesses. And staff illnesses have an impact on productivity, which directly affects the bottom line.

Flies affect your business’ bottom line

Houseflies (along with other species of filth flies such as blow flies) spread a range of harmful diseases. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that flies are capable of transmitting at least 65 diseases: primarily diarrhoeal diseases, and skin and eye infections. These diseases can have an impact on both staff and customer health, resulting in staff absenteeism and damage to your brand reputation and income.

Diseases spread by flies

In addition to diarrhoeal diseases, skin and eye infections, it has also been proven that flies can transmit foodborne pathogens. Research published in the Journal of Food Protection shows that fruit flies are capable of spreading bacterial pathogens to both food and food preparation surfaces. The study was the first to demonstrate that fruit flies can transfer E. coli, Salmonella, and Listeria to surfaces and relocate bacteria from a contaminated source to fresh, ready-to-eat food. Houseflies are also known to carry and spread the following diseases:

• Cholera
• Conjunctivitis
• Dysentery
• Gastroenteritis
• Salmonellosis
• Shigellosis
• Tuberculosis
• Typhoid fever

How to protect your employees from fly-borne illnesses:

Clearly, it is in any business’ best interests to ensure that employees are protected from catching any of the above mentioned fly-borne illnesses. You can do this by minimising the risk of a fly infestation in your workplace.

Some DIY ways to keep flies away include:

Eliminating breeding sites: Common breeding sites for flies – such as the refuse area – are also the main sources of fly-borne diseases. Eliminating breeding sites will reduce the risk of flies picking up disease-causing microorganisms and also help reduce the flies themselves.

Rubbish bins: a proper waste management system should be in place to ensure that bins are never overfilled and are emptied regularly. Bins should have a tight lid secured at all times and units should be regularly cleaned. You can read more about this in our previous blog post: Complex and Office Garbage Bins: the ultimate pest magnet

Human waste:  Bathrooms should be regularly cleaned and all pipes should be running smoothly to reduce build-up and overflow. Fly screens should be installed over ventilation covers and drains to prevent flies from entering.

Professional fly control with Rentokil’s Lumnia range of ILT’s:

DIY solutions can help prevent a problem from starting in the first place, but once a fly infestation has taken hold, you need a professional solution.

Lumina is an innovative, fly-control solution from Rentokil designed to effectively exterminate flies in the most hygienic and energy efficient manner. Our new fly control solution uses patented LED technology by using a UV-A LED lights, which is more attractive to flies than phosphor lamps found in traditional electric fly killers. This use of LED also reduces energy consumption and offers an average energy savings of 61%.

Want to know more about the Lumnia and how it can help your businesses? Download the brochure, or contact our team to discuss your needs.

The benefits from the world-leading ILT range:

• Catches over 15 different flying insects such as house flies, fruit flies, drain flies and blue bottles
• Catches flies as fast or faster than any other LED ILT on the market
• Combines LED light technology with unrivalled scientific innovation and expertise – for fly-control that delivers total peace of mind.
• Hides captured flies from view and helps prevent cross-contamination
• The open/close feature makes units easy to service, so there’s minimal disruption to your business

The most efficient way to prevent flies from becoming a problem for your employees and customers is with the help of a professional pest control company such as Rentokil and our proactive services and solutions to both control and prevent flies, including Lumnia, our market-leading LED insect light trap (ILT).