Flies

Then last year I rented a house on the same street. This house had flies, but not an infestation. Still I wanted to control them, so I bought a bug zapper. This device uses ultraviolet fluorescent tubes to attract flying insects, then electrocutes them when they land on wires charged with high voltage. It works like a charm. The only drawback is seeing the light during the night and the loud ‘zap’ when the electricity discharges from the capacitor through the insect.My house has not had the infestation, but I have had one or two flies — hardly enough to bother. But the other night, while reading my laptop in the evening, I noticed a swarm of tiny insects flying in front of the computer screen. For a couple days I had been bitten by some insect at night, but I had not seen any mosquitos.

For background, I have been opening windows at night to cool the house, but have window screens that fit well. Early in the morning I often open a door to let the cat out, and the door stays open for about an hour. (Usually at this hour there are not many insects flying outdoors.)

When I saw the swarm of tiny insects I thought of ‘no-see-ums’, which were a plaque in New Hampshire, but not in Washington. They seem small enough to get through the window screens, and our camping tent has extra-fine screen to keep them out.

At any rate, I put the bug zapper out, and within an hour heard about six loud ‘ZAP’ noises. The rest of the night I heard about half a dozen more of these sounds. I knew I had eliminated many pests. Sure enough, I only hear the Zap once or twice a day now and the bites seem to have stopped. Looking in the tray (left) at the bottom of the bug zapper I see several dead flies and many dead ‘no-see-ums’. Seems to work, even on the insects that I thought would be too small to trigger the electric arc.

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