Why do restaurant fly lights and cleaning fail to stop flies?
Fly lights and standard cleaning routines like mopping floors and wiping tables miss the hidden breeding sources where flies reproduce, such as drains or incoming food deliveries. This ongoing infestation persists in kitchens and dining spaces despite daily maintenance, driving owners to constantly search for root causes.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
- 1Using fly lights
- 2Mopping floors
- 3Wiping down tables
- 4making simple apple cider vinegar traps with a few drops of dish soap
- 5Mixing water, apple cider vinegar, and a drop of dish soap inside a cup with a paper funnel cone
- 6Adding a piece of ripe fruit or wine into the trap instead of white vinegar
- 7Pouring boiling water or specialized treatments down drains
- 8Using a store-bought electronic plug-in fly trap
- 9Trapping them in a jar with a piece of banana and plastic wrap poked with small holes
- 10Using UV light traps with glue boards
- 11Installing high-voltage zappers in storage and back areas
- 12Using PVC strip curtains or air curtains at entrances
- 13Swatting flies one by one
In their words
Unedited, most upvoted first, each linked to the thread it came from.
“i tried the soap + white vinegar "hack" didnt work, i tried it in various different formulas/ratios and they just kept landing on the rim of the cup/bowl so it didnt not work at all.”source ↗
“the most annoying thing is that they are in my bedroom, amd i have hoovered, cleaned surfaces with bleach, cleaned / shampoo'ed the carpet, empited out all drawers and cupboards but there is nothing”source ↗
“Hi i recently took over additional space with full kitchen and tables. We have fly lights but still seem to have issues. We mop floors and wipe down tables Any suggestions ?”source ↗
“I’ve been struggling with a resurgence of flies after almost completely getting rid of them- then this happened- just now I was washing the dishes, and I had a scrub daddy sponge in the sink besides the one I was using. I went to move it and SO MANY flies came crawling out of it!!!”source ↗
“These have been hanging around in my bathroom, saw some in the kitchen too. What’s causing them?”source ↗
“Running a back-of-house space (or managing one) and flies are a constant fight, sprays aren't great around food prep, and swatting one-by-one obviously doesn't scale.”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 11How to get rid of tiny flying bugs coming out of wooden furniture
- 3How to get rid of fungus gnats without changing the soil
- 5Why won't house ants go away no matter what I spray?
- 3Ant infestation in my car - How to get rid of them ?
- 2How to keep palmetto bugs from coming upstairs from the attic
- 10Why won't drain flies go away after pest control?