With the warmer weather here, and summer right around the corner, in addition to no school, pool days, and more hours of sunlight, flies and other insects are soon to join us outdoors and inside our homes and businesses. In addition to flies being a nuisance, they can transmit diseases and contaminate your food. While we all know how annoying flies can be and why we don’t want them in our NW Ohio and SE Michigan homes and businesses, we are also going to review why you don’t want flies anywhere near your food.
Give me a Fly Refresher
Flies are considered to be a nuisance pest and are perhaps one of the most irritating invaders you can find inside your home or business in the warmer months of the year.
Flies are insects of the order Diptera. Insects of this order use a single pair of wings to fly. While there are numerous types of flies, the flies that invade our homes in the spring and summertime are usually ordinary houseflies (Musca domestic). This insect is roughly 3/8 inch long with large compound reddish eyes. This pest spends most of its time flying, and is typically very quick to fly away, making a fly hard to catch.
Houseflies typically live no more than 30 days, but because they reproduce quickly, an indoor infestation may be nearly perpetual with the right conditions.
Why You Don’t Want Flies Anywhere Near Your Food
While you want to enjoy that mouthwatering slice of watermelon, unfortunately, so do flies. The World Health Organization (WHO) identifies at least 65 diseases that can be spread by the common housefly, including cholera, conjunctivitis, dysentery, leprosy, and typhoid fever. Let’s review further as to why you don’t want flies anywhere near you or your family’s food.
- Diseases and Parasites: Flies are twice as likely to spread germs and diseases than cockroaches. We know, mind blowing, because cockroaches are disgusting, but when a fly lands on your food, it can spread diseases and parasites directly to it and they carry more with them because of their consumption choices (trust us, you don’t want us to go into details). As we said above, these flying pests are known to carry at least 65 diseases.
- They are Not Clean: Flies have no teeth and can’t chew, so when they want to feast, they have to spit out their food and swallow it down when it softens (this can happen over and over). They are basically vomiting until enzymes dissolve their food enough for them to digest it. If a fly lands on your food, they can be leaving some of their food, feces, and urine behind. We know, gross.
- Their Eggs: It is not uncommon, if given enough time on your food, that a fly can lay their eggs on it. You will not see the eggs, but they are there. Fly eggs turn into maggots overtime, and who wants to eat that? We cringe just thinking about it.
According to USA Today, only 3% of people say the presence of a fly would make them drop their fork. That’s disturbing, because it only takes a few seconds for flies to contaminate your food with diseases and parasites, their vomit and feces, and even their eggs.
Whether you throw out food that a fly comes in contact with or not, after reading this, you likely don’t want to have to even think about it, and would prefer to keep them out of your home or business. Delving Pest Control can help.
We offer a range of discreet home pest control services to help you achieve the results you’re after. From creepy-crawly critters, to stinging bees and wasps, to rodents, or even if you have no idea what is making you itch, Delving is here. Not sure what you need, or what it costs? Contact us and we can come out and we can explain what services are right for you and tell you more about our costs for services.
