I recently had some family over for a BBQ and had some unexpected guests join us.
Flies…. and lots of them!
I tried hard to keep my cool as these little pests worked at spoiling my BBQ. I asked my friends for any tips on keeping flies away for future get-togethers.
One guest stunned me with his suggestion – Fill ziplock bags with water and a couple of pennies and hang them around the area!
I was intrigued. As soon as the mess was cleared away, I sat down at my computer to verify this and landed at snopes.com and science.howstuffworks.com. Here’s what I found:
The short of it; experts and amateurs are split on this.
Many restaurant owners will share success stories on how hanging water-filled plastic bags from the ceiling kept the droves of flies away. Several insist on adding a single penny to the polybag, some say a handful and yet others say pennies are unnecessary.
How does it work? There are those that claim the insects fly away at the site of their magnified reflection or that the insects perceive the bag to be a body of water.
What is puzzling about the above explanations is that there is no lack of flies at lakes and ponds. This means that water doesn’t scare the flies away. Neither does their reflection scare them off as you can find the creatures on mirrors and glass too.
Yet most explain that houseflies have very sensitive eyes and the plastic bag filled with water alters the course of light shining at it and confuses the insect.
Science hasn’t yet proven either way if this method of hanging water from polybags actually works. Regardless, you will still find bags filled with water hanging in restaurants and in backyard patios across the globe.
For my next party, I plan on stringing some Hang Hole Zip Lock Bags on twine and hanging them around the area.
I wonder what will happen….
