What Is The The Best Way To Repel Flying Insects From Entering Your Home?

Home and Garden Guide Online is on yet another quest to find out if the “water in a plastic bag – hung above an entry door,” really works.

We’re testing it out and we’d love to hear your feed back on whether this works and how effective you think it is so please make a comment.

The idea to test this theory came about as we ventured into another home project.

We are in the process of Installing a wood burning stove which requires many trips in and out of the house. Opening and shutting the doors…sometimes, LEAVING THE DOORS WIDE OPEN!

Although it IS November and SHOULD be cold…we are experiencing high temperatures in the high 70′s which mean that flying insects are in flight!

So I thought, what a great time to test this idea for repelling these pests.

This first post will cover what we learned while preparing for this test.

Hope you enjoy!

Questions:

* What kind and size of bag is the best to use?
* How much water is really needed to make this idea work?
* Where is the best place to position these bags?
* Does the effect just work on flies or any “flying pests?”
* What is the best method of hanging these bags?

First, we found out that even a good ziplock bag is NOT air and water tight. leaking-ziplock-bag

We chose to use the expandable bottom type gallon size bags for our test. Bigger seemed better. We decided to fill the bags to a little below half full. Water-bag-fly-repeller

Then we decided to find out what this much water weighs. Can you believe that this bag weighed almost 4 lbs. !!

NOTE: Better be careful where you hang this! Who wants 4 lbs. of water hitting them in the head!

We positioned two bags, one on the upstairs entry and one on the downstairs entry doors. We decided for safety purposes to hang the bags to the extreme right of entry. water-filled-bag-hung-in-door-entry

We decided to use standard thumbtacks to hang these bags and made sure they were fully inserted in the door trim also making sure that we caught the bags below the zipper portion of the bags which is the strongest point of support.

So with he bags installed, it’s time to test them out!

We’ll be back to let you know what we think. Meanwhile let us know if you’ve tried this and what your thoughts are. If you know first hand that this works and know how and why please let us all know.

People who like this article will also like:

How To Make A Natural Fly Repellent

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7 Responses to “Best Flying Insect Repellent?”
  1. Diana says:

    Interesting concept to repel flying insects David! I have never heard of it before but it will be interesting to find out if it really works.

    Do let us know if this worked for you.

    Diana

  2. Wizzer says:

    Never heard of that one. I can see it potentially repelling tall humans too :)

    I’ll be watching for the results – you could be going into full time production if it works

  3. Denise says:

    Hmmmm… I have never heard of this and thought I had heard it all. It will be interesting to see the results.

    I would try it myself, but our weather is discouraging insects.

  4. admin says:

    Will do Diana. Weather looks like it will support “flyers” through nest week so we’ll leave the doors open and find out. If it fails, we’ll be doing some fly swatting!
    David

  5. admin says:

    Tall humans – beware…especially when the weather turns and the bags of water become frozen bricks! At least they’ll serve as ice packs then.

    David

  6. admin says:

    Well so far it has not been heard of by those who have responded. Maybe it’s a southern thing. I’ve looked into it a little since my post and locals say it has something to do with the optical confusion the water causes. Hmmmm is right!!

    David

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