Pesky little things, those flies. For most intents and purposes – they don’t have a whole lot to do in our homes, except being food for spiders, but they try and get in anyway. Flies have been around humans since we can remember and we’ve been fighting them and their buzzing from the very start. Smoke, fly swatters, flycatcher plants… we’ve tried it all with varying degrees of success until someone put up a net.
They used to be light cloth coverings around beds, to keep all insects out, but later on, have evolved to be fine nets that we place on windows where we expect flies to come in. This elegant solution has remained one of the most popular ones around and there are many other advantages to be gained from it, as well as many variations on the solution.
The Cheapest Protection
Sure, a fly swatter is cheaper than a screen and it doesn’t require any skill to operate, but how much time will you waste trying to catch a single fly until it lands somewhere? How often will you have to repaint the walls after you’ve splattered one of those defenseless flies over it? Time is, unfortunately, money, and we’d rather spend it relaxing in a quiet and clean home.
That is why fly screens are the way to go, because not only are they relatively cheap to install, they require no maintenance apart from dusting it once a week. And since they offer passive protection, they are a huge time saver in that regard, something that people with a lot of windows in their homes will greatly appreciate.
Adjustable Options
Comparing with other solutions, such as keeping a lot of sticky fly paper hanging from the ceiling, or having a flycatcher plant on every shelf, fly screens are a lot more versatile and effective. For example, retractable fly screens can be placed just like any other but don’t have to be there all the time, can be rolled up during the day when there are fewer flies, and won’t shade the natural light coming in. Rolling them up also saves them from collecting dust when they are not needed.
Another great thing about their adjustability is that they can be applied to more than just a flat surface. Because they are made out of a foldable mesh, they can be placed over curved surfaces too, as seen in some modern homes.
Flyscreen > Traps
However, much of a nuisance we find them, flies do not mean us harm. They buzz by simply moving around, the majority of them don’t bite us, and they are only following a few senses in the food search, not in the search for humans to annoy. So killing or maiming them seems a bit over the top, considering they won’t do us any serious harm. But most traps do exactly that.
A flyscreen, on the other hand, is much more human in that sense. While it does keep them away from food, they are still free to just turn around and search for food in another place, somewhere outside preferably. For anyone whose moral compass dictates that they should not harm animals in any possible way, this is a clear solution to this problem.
Better Air Circulation
If you don’t want to let flies in – don’t open any windows or doors, it is that simple! But what about letting fresh air in? Now, we’re faced with a problem that has been a problem to solve for ages – as soon as you open anything on a hot summer’s day – something will fly in right away. And even today we have openings that cannot be covered sufficiently well, whatever we do.
But having an appropriately dense mesh over, that is – in front of a window, gives you the liberty to open it wide and let in a breeze without worrying if anything else will be let in. If you are considering installing one, make sure that you have windows that open to the inside, as well as placing the screens over those you tend to use more often.
Safer For You and Them
As discussed previously, flies are not aggressive towards people but are still harmful in some ways. First and foremost, they are carriers of certain diseases and those can be transmitted via the food they land on, even more, if they place their eggs in it. To avoid this, one should primarily keep food stored away in closed containers (there are other pests around that can reach it too) and clean kitchen counters and tables.
But using anything except screens that keep flies out entirely means that they will still be around for some time until they get caught or hit. So, in short, it is better for both your and their well-being to keep them out of the home entirely, because, on the contrary, both sides can get sick or injured.
Keeps Out More Than Flies
A fly screen acts as a universal filter membrane, selecting out anything and everything larger than the pores in it. And while a filter in common sense is much, much denser, this one is sized so that air can flow freely through it and you can have sunlight pass, but not much else.
During the summer a large number of pests appear in nature, being especially more frequent around homes where there are interesting smells and a draft flowing ever so often. To keep them out it is usually enough to place one of these nets over the windows, as many are similarly sized to flies. Bees, wasps, or even spiders and larger mosquitos – none of them can get through these screens.
And as their population increases, so does the need to install one of these solutions.
As we’ve seen, there are many advantages to using screens as a barrier against unwanted insects coming in. Apart from being the most practical solution, it is also the most long-lasting one, it requires the least effort to maintain and is, actually, the most humane way of solving the issue. So install one before the season begins and enjoy a breeze without the familiar buzzing inside the room.