I made a crossword puzzle once where the theme is that some clues have missing commas. So, for instance, one clue is "All for one" and the answer is LAUNDRY DETERGENT. Get it? The clue is supposed to be interpreted as "All, for one", and then the answer fits since All is an example of a laundry detergent. (There is a revealer later in the puzzle explaining this to help the solver along.) Another clue is "Flies frequently" and the answer is ANNOYANCES, since putting a comma in the clue would indicate that flies frequently are annoyances. I've been thinking about this puzzle lately since flies have become annoyances in my life of late--more than annoyances, actually. They've become the bane of my existence. Okay, that's an exaggeration. They are somewhere between annoyances and the bane of my existence.
The story starts with a different flying pest: mosquitoes. They are in abundant supply here in DC because the city was built on a swamp.* In certain pockets of the district, including our yard, unfortunately, mosquitoes make going outside for a prolonged period of time completely unbearable, unless you bathe in deet before hand, which is a step up from being eaten alive, to be sure, but still isn't very pleasant. So, to have a backyard we can actually enjoy, we bit the bullet during the Covid lockdown and spent a hefty chunk of change to screen-in our previously open-air deck. We then used it frequently, and it was great.
*This is a fact you will hear again and again if you live in this area, but I've never actually fact-checked it. It's probably not even true. I'm going to Google it right now... and what do you know?
But that was six years ago, and over time the screen has frayed and gotten some holes in it. This means a few more bugs get in now, particularly houseflies. They land on the screen and walk along it and maybe chance upon a hole and slip in. It used to not be a big deal because it was just the odd fly, every now and then. But a few weeks ago, S texted me while I was at work that there was a whole swarm of flies in the corner of our deck.* So, I bought some Raid and a bunch of different housefly traps on my way home, and I sprayed the swarm down and set up the traps and patted my hands together as if to say, Well, that's the end of that.
*Of course, she didn't try to do anything about it, because as a man this is my job. I also had to clean up the dead squirrel in our yard, even though I wasn't home at the time it was discovered.
And... the next morning they were back, even more of them before. I mowed them all down again, and then I checked the traps and came to realize that those things are mostly snake oil. There were dozens of flies around, and presumably they had been there for hours, and yet some of the traps didn't have a single fly in them. I started monitoring them, and I would watch a fly approach a trap, sometimes even land on it, and then not go in it. It was infuriating. The only thing that kinda worked is this multicolored adhesive stick. It had four or five flies stuck to it, which was better than the baited water trap, which had one, and then the light bulb trap and the other adhesive trap had zero. Their only stated purpose is to catch flies, and they couldn't catch a single one of a massive swarm.
Since it was clear the over-the-counter traps weren't up to the task, I called our pest control company to have them come out for a special visit. It wasn't quite a complete waste of time. He sprayed some industrial strength poison, which did almost nothing, the flies were back almost immediately, but he did explain that they were probably not getting in through holes, but rather breeding within the screens of the deck. For some reason, I never even considered this possibility, but it makes perfect sense. There is no way they could all be coming through the tiny, sparse holes in the screen. There is way too many of them for that. What must have happened is an inseminated female got in, laid her disgusting fly eggs under the floorboards, and started a colony. Our screen wasn't keeping the flies out; it was trapping them in. This was a they-weren't-flashbacks-they-were-flash-forwards Lost moment for me.
But what to do about it? I considered just opening the screen and letting the flies leave, but then what? How would I know if they were gone for good? When would I close the screen again? If they were still breeding under our deck, then that wouldn't solve anything. And it would let all the mosquitoes in, which is worse, because they suck your blood. Instead, I decided I would just have to wipe out their colony. Kill them all and let God sort it out. So, I bought out the entire stock of the multicolored adhesive sticks from the local hardware store (which was only three) and hung them up around the deck, both inside and out, and I made a plan to check the deck every half-hour or so and spray every fly I saw, no exceptions.* I had to get them before they could reproduce.
*Thankfully we still have a few boxes of N95 masks in our old "Covid drawer," so I don't have to directly inhale the toxic spray. It does dissipate quickly, though, and I've gotten good at using just a tiny amount. You just need to hit those annoyances with a little shot, and then they can't fly temporarily, so you can knock them off the screen with a blunt object (I use a flat, light shoe) and bop them, hard enough to kill them, but not so hard it makes it mess. It's takes a deft hand to do it perfectly.
Since S has been gone this past week, I've been working from home, which gave me a good opportunity to carry out my plan. I think it's working, but not quite as well as I would prefer. I have yet to go a day without killing a fly, but the number has definitely gone down. At first, I would see a half dozen or so every time I checked. Then it was two or three. Then it was two or three every other time I checked. Now it's one or two a few times a day. Progress, but it's still not good enough, and it's not linear. Sometimes I won't see any for hours, and I'll see one and go out to get it and realize while I'm out there that there are four more buzzing around. That's very disheartening.
Hopefully, this seemingly unending struggle will in fact end soon. I can't continue to live my life this way. It's not just the time investment, it's also the psychology and physical strain. I'm like Walter White in his "contaminated" meth lab. My blood pressure goes up every time I see a speck of gunk on our screen. The other day I ran out to spray a fly and realized it wasn't a fly, but a spider, and I sprayed it anyway, which is completely counterproductive, given that more spiders mean less flies. I also don't love killing a massive number of living things. I mean, we all do it every time we wash our hands with antibacterial soap, but we can't see that. I can see the flies on the ground writhing around, hopelessly flapping their little wings and kicking their little legs. I know that this is the only way to get rid of them--it's not like I can shoo them away or transport their nest to the woods--but still, it doesn't make me feel awesome.
Alright, that's all for now. I've been talking about flies so much, I'm starting to feel like Jeff Goldblum (in Independence Day, weirdly, not The Fly). Until next time...
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