Once a fly enters your home, it can be challenging to make it leave. Instead of chasing the flies around your home with a flyswatter, you can use items that you already own to prevent them from entering in the first place:
Ginger Spray
Ginger has a very powerful odor that is irritating to flies. If they smell it in an area, they will do everything in their power to avoid being in that area. To keep flies from entering your home, make a ginger spray with three or four cups of water and a few pinches of dried ginger powder. Use the spray around your door frames, on your plants, and on your garbage cans so that flies immediately smell the ginger and know to avoid coming into your home.
Basil
If you cook with basil, you know that it has a strong aroma. This scent is quite pleasant to most humans, but flies find the smell to be repulsive and difficult to breathe around. The easiest way to utilize basil as a natural fly repellant is to grow a small amount of this herb in a pot by your door or in your window sill. Or, you can create a water and basil concoction to spray around your home by steeping basil leaves in water for 20-30 minutes.
Hot Pepper
The capsicum in hot peppers can be irritating to humans, but it is even more so to flies. If a fly enters an area where hot pepper is grown or sprayed, it will attempt to leave immediately because it will have difficulty breathing. With hot peppers, you technically can create a spray and use it around your home, but we would advise against that–particularly if you have pets or children–because touching it can be irritating to the skin. A better alternative is to grow a hot pepper plant in the garden near your home.
Essential Oils
Essential oils are growing in popularity every day because of their alleged abilities to help with everything from anxiety to pain relief. But there is direct evidence that using essential oil sprays can prevent flies from entering your home. After all, if a fly is repelled by the plant, it will also be repelled by the plant’s essential oil. To make this spray, you will need to add ten drops each of clove oil, thyme oil, cinnamon oil, lemongrass oil, and peppermint oil, plus two cups of unflavored vodka and two cups of water. Use anywhere in your home that can attract flies, like the trash can or garbage disposal.
Fans
A tried and true method of getting rid of flies is to simply turn on a fan (or two). This can be very effective in pushing flies out the door or preventing them from entering in the first place, but the effects only last as long as the fan are on. To use this method, turn your overhead fan on its highest setting and face a box fan towards the door. Blasting cool air towards the fly’s point of entry will deter it from wanting to cross your doorstep.