What keeps flies away better: fly strips or fly bait boxes?

This blog takes a look at which fly control method keeps flies away better: fly strips or fly bait boxes, when it comes to controlling flies in the office environment. Flies are something we talk about a lot on deBugged, because they are such a ubiquitous problem. Pretty much everyone, from the smallest business to the biggest factory – and all of us at home – have experienced a fly problem at some stage.

But besides flies being ubiquitous, extremely annoying and unhygienic, what else do we know about them?

Here are a few facts about flies that you may not know:

• There are more than 300,000 species of flies across the globe.
• Flies only have two wings whereas most insects have four wings.

• The common house fly lives for about 30 days, and in that lifetime can can lay up to 3000 eggs!
• Flies eyes are interesting: they consist of over 4000 lenses per eye (they have 2), and while they can’t see very well, they can detect the slightest movement.
  Flies vomit on food before eating it, in order to digest it.
• Flies defecate every 4-5 minutes, so if a fly hasn’t vomited on your food, chances are high they have contaminated it with faeces

All of the above are excellent reasons to invest in good fly control solutions for your office – especially your kitchen and canteen areas. But which solution to employ?  Fly strips or fly bait boxes?

Let’s unpack the pros and cons of each of these options.

Fly strips:

Fly strips – or flypaper as it used to be called – is certainly one way of catching flies.

The long strips of sticky contact paper dangle down from wherever they have been placed. The paper is coated with an attractant that also has adhesive properties. The attractants used in the paper can emit food based or pheromone fragrances. The more the flies struggle, the more strongly they get stuck to the adhesive.

Pro’s: They are certainly effective – in a very basic way.

They are also very inexpensive, and can be purchased at just about any hardware store or supermarket.

They can be installed by anyone – just open and hang!

Con’s: A twisted strip of flypaper hanging from the ceiling is considered by most people to be aesthetically unacceptable, and is hygienically pretty questionable, especially somewhere where food is prepared.

Fly strips don’t actually keep flies away from you kitchen – they just catch the ones that are close enough to the sticky paper. If anything, the attractant may actually bring in more flies!

Fly bait boxes:

Rentokil offers an external fly bait box that prevents flies from breeding in areas such as refuse or waste areas.  It specifically targets flies external breeding sites. The backboard is coated in a fast acting and highly effective insecticide, which is formulated to attract flies with pheromones and food attractants, before swiftly eliminating them on contact.

Pro’s: The bait box requires no electricity, which means you have numerous placement options. We do – however – recommend that you deploy it in flies preferred breeding sites, such as refuse areas. By doing so you will automatically reduce the number of flies that make it into your premises, which means that unlike the fly strip, bait boxes do prevent flies from making their way indoors.

The fly bait box has been designed to form part of an integrated fly control offering. If used in conjunction with adequate fly screening (another weapon in the arsenal of integrated fly control) bait boxes can be pivotal in reducing the risk of flies entering your property.

Con’s: Fly bait boxes can’t be purchased at a hardware store – they are rented from Rentokil and must be serviced at least every 12 weeks by our qualified Rentokil technicians to ensure the unit remains highly effective throughout the fly breeding season.

We believe that fly control should be holistic, so proofing and denying flies access to breeding locations are also important as part of an overall fly control strategy.

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