How to Get Rid of Flies in a Garage in 9 Easy Ways

Have you noticed flies buzzing around in your garage? It’s normal to have one or two flying around from time to time, but if you have a legion of them occupying the space, you have a problem. These pests bring disease into your home, and they’re super annoying. That's why we're here to discuss how to get rid of flies in your garage the easy way.

It’s critical for homeowners to remove fly infestations before they the chance to get out of hand and cause health problems for their family. We curated this list of proven methods to help you get rid of the flies in your garage for good.

How to Get Rid of Flies in Your Garage

We have 9 simple methods to help you get rid of flies in your garage and keep them out. Some will be a little more time consuming but more effective, and others will be quicker but require a little bit of money. For the most effective approach, combine as many of the options below as possible. At as a word of comfort, this is a lot easier than trying to get a bird out of your garage!

Deep Clean the Garage

You’ll start with cleaning your garage, because this is how to keep flies out of your garage once you're rid of them.. Flies are attracted to waste and debris where they can lay eggs and keep their lifecycle going.

House flies enter your home because they detect food waste, trash, or cat litter, releasing fumes into the air. An unfinished garage can collect a lot of dead worms, spiders, dust, and debris in all of its crevices.

Different species of flies are looking for other resources they can use to breed. For instance, drain flies enter your property because they detect standing water where they can reproduce. Clean up your garage and remove any food sources where flies can breed and mop up standing water from storms or fix leaky pipes causing pooling water.

If you keep a cat litter box in the garage, clean it out regularly to stop flies from using it as a place to breed and consider trying cat litter alternatives that are less attractive to insects. They love hanging out in the cat feces. Use the following tips to make the area less hospitable for flies.

Remove Trash Cans From the Garage – Keeping trash cans in the garage is probably the biggest attractor of flies. Consider moving the trash cans outside around the size of your house. If you’re worried raccoons and other pests will get into the trash, buy trash cans with locking lids.

Get an Odor Filter for the Trash Can – This device masks the scent of bad odors coming from the trash can, limiting flies. This device kills flies in your trash cans, keeping them pest-free for up to four months.

Use Sticky Traps to Get Rid of Flies in Your Garage

Fly Paper – You can catch adult and juvenile flies by hanging sticky traps around your garage. Hang sticky fly paper ribbons from the roof, or use window fly traps in areas where you notice flies escaping and entering the garage. Flypaper and sticky traps are non-toxic and safe to use around pets and people.

Trap Sticks – If you have a severe fly infestation in your garage, you can hang some “TrapStiks” to eliminate the pests. This product is highly effective at trapping flies and doesn’t have any odor or chemical residue harmful to people or pets.

Using Fly Bait to Get Rid of a Fly Infestation in Your Garage

This is a very effective method for how to get rid of flies in your garage. Close all the windows and seal the doors to prevent more flies from entering the garage. If you remove the trash, there’s no chance any larvae will hatch into more flies. Now, you can use fly bait to trap the remaining pests in the garage and clear the area with the following steps.

Step 1 – Place half a cup of fly bait in an aluminum pan or plastic container.

Step 2 – Wet the fly bait with water or old beer.

Step 3 – Place the container on a high ledge or shelf in your garage, and keep it out of reach of pets and children.

Step 4 – Wait for the flies to start consuming the bait. Remove the dead flies regularly and toss them in a plastic bag in the trash to avoid attracting more flies.

Step 5 – Top up the bait pellets when necessary.

Step 6 – Remove the bait containers and throw them away in sealed bags in the trash after all the flies are gone.

Pro Tip – Don’t put out the fly bait with windows or doors open. You’ll attract more flies from outside.

Remove Liquids & Standing Water from Your Garage

Drain flies are commonly found around stagnant water. For instance, you might have a huge rainstorm where water comes in under the garage door and pools under your car over the weekend.

Or, you might have a leaking pipe or blocked drain somewhere in the garage attracting pests. Buckets with old water in them also act as magnets for drain flies. It could even be a sweating garage floor to fix attracting these insects.

Drain flies thrive around stagnant water, especially in warm conditions during the summer. They’re the little black worms in your shower, too, in larva form. They breed and spread fast, one fly turning into hundreds in just a few weeks.

You’ll need to remove any water sources from the garage to eliminate drain flies. Fix broken pipes, unclog drains and remove standing water or water in buckets from the garage. Then kill them off with Drano in the pipes.

Using Fly Swatters to Get Rid of Garage Flies

If you only have a few flies buzzing around your garage, you can get rid of them the old-fashioned way – with a fly swatter. Here are our top recommendations for effective fly swatters for the job. When it comes to how to get rid of flies in your garage, this one can be the most fun or irritating, depending on your mood at the time.

Conventional Fly Swatters – These fly swatters are best for swatting the flies when they land on surfaces. You have plenty of different options for swatters, including devices that swat the flies and collect the dead bodies to prevent you from attracting more flies.

Electric Fly Swatter – This device looks like a tennis or squash racket. It’s a battery-powered fly swatter using an electrical current to stun and kill the flies. You’ll use this device to swathe flies while flying in the air instead of sitting on a surface.

Bug-a-Salt – These devices use a target and firing system to launch table salt at the flies to kill them. They’re effective but more challenging to use and make a mess. Still, they’re the better choice for people that don’t want to swing a racket around.

Fogging Your Garage to Eliminate Flies

You have the option of fogging your garage to get rid of the flies. Follow these instructions for successful fogging and pest-free property.

Step 1 – Buy a fogging spray in an easy-to-use aerosol can format. You can also opt for what is called a "bug bomb".

Step 2 – Close all the doors and windows in your garage and seal them under the doors to prevent air from escaping.

Step 3 – Wear a respirator and spray the fogging product into the air around the room using short blasts. There’s an applicator pipe attached to the can to help you direct the discharge to where the flies are sitting.

Step 4 – Leave the area and close the door.

Step 5 – Wait a few hours and open all the doors and windows in the garage to replace the air and dissipate the fog. Clean up the dead flies on the floor.

Make DIY Fly Traps Using Soda Bottles

If you’d rather use home remedies for flies in the garage, you can make DIY fly traps to remove the pests from your garage. Old soda bottles make the ideal tool for killing off those pesky flies in your garage. Follow this method to setting up this trap. This is the old school answer to how to get rid of flies in your garage that still works today.

Step 1 – Remove the bottle cap and cut the top quarter with the neck away from the bottle using scissors.

Step 2 – Mix old beer and flat soda to fill the bottom fifth of the empty soda bottle.

Step 3 – Replace the top part of the soda bottle with the opening facing the bottom of the bottle base.

Step 4 – Place these soda bottle fly traps on the floor around your garage and keep them away from kids and pets.

The flies are attracted to the liquid in the bottle. They’ll enter through the opening to get at the liquid, but they won’t be able to escape, eventually drowning in the liquid. Replace the traps as they start to fill with flies. Remember, the scent of dead flies attracts more of them.

Proper Lawn Maintenance & Composting to Prevent Flies

Flies breed in compost bins and in long grass in your yard. Keep the lawn trimmed and ensure the compost heap is as far away from the garage as possible to stop flies from entering your garage. A decomposing compost heap doesn’t attract flies, provided you use the correct waste.

Don’t place kitchen scraps like dairy or meat waste in the compost heap. Stick to only using organic matter from the garden in your compost heap. Animal feces and cooking oils also attract flies to the compost heap.

Don’t let your compost heap get too wet for extended periods. This effect causes rotting, which attracts flies. It also stops the composting process, turning the compost into sludge unsuitable for your garden; it just stinks.

Use Scents that Flies Hate to Keep them Out of Your Garage

While flies like foul, rotting smells like trash and food waste, they find other scents repulsive. You can burn several candles, producing scents flies don’t like being around. Citronella is a popular option.

The citrusy scent of this product keeps flies and mosquitoes away from the area. They’re available in deodorizers and candles to help keep flying pests away from your garage and other locations around your home.

Eucalyptus, lavender, cloves, basil, and white vinegar are other options. Pick up some herbs and essential oils from the store and leave them around the garage. They’ll stop the flies from entering the area.

And That's How to Get Rid of Flies in Your Garage

With the 9 methods above outlining how to get rid of flies in your garage, you should not only be able to get them out or eradicate them, but you should be able to keep a new fly infestation from forming as well. Remember, most of these methods are very simple to apply so combine as many as you can for faster and better results.

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