Would you hurt a fly?

I will not abide flies in my house. They are a disease vector, so I feel justified in swatting them.

I have a week every spring that I call Housefly Week. At a certain time every afternoon, they all congregate in one kitchen window, where I descend on them with malice aforethought with my trusty vacuum. They are sucked into the bag, there to become hopelessly entangled in dog hair and detritus, to die lingering miserable deaths. Then I gloat a bit, because I am just that awful a person.

Yes, I would hurt a fly.

I would hurt a fly, an ant and a stink bug.

My daughter puts the stink bugs out of the house. She gets upset when I kill them. I usually kill them by flushing them down the toilet or in the bathroom sink, although I’ve been known to capture them in paper and tape it up tight, and throw it in the garbage.

@canidmajor I’ve been dust busting them with impunity too! They seem to be here earlier and longer this year.

This what you need for flies.

https://www.bugasalt.com/

@Tropical_Willie That’s a little scary! lol

I have been guilty of insectoid genocide.

We often have geckos in the house who are expert vermin eradicators, but since I got a cat, the geckos run scared of her jaws.

I will gladly squish flies. I also kill roaches anytime one has the audacity to appear in my kitchen or bathroom. I leave spiders alone.

I had box elder bugs and stink bugs in my apartment recently. They get the Dustbuster treatment. They are fly-sized and numerous and I don’t feel bad about vacuuming them into the void.

Spiders are more welcome in my home. I figure one spider can eat multiple annoying critters. High benefit/cost ratio. Mi casa es tu casa, my spider allies.

Surprising to me, wasps get the most gentle treatment. Two or three times a year, they find their way into my place. They buzz about the living room window trying to exit. I capture them with a drinking glass (mouth flat on the window). I slip a card or piece of mail between the wasp and the window. I take my glass menagerie outside and free the occupant.

Yes, but not always. I also tend to leave them for my cat to hunt.

@Zaku Can I borrow your cat?

Yes, I would hurt a fly, and I have hurt flies before. But with my two cats, even when a stray fly does manage to get in my apartment, they usually quickly dispense of it.

Happily. I imagine I kill hundreds every year. And ants, and moths, and even the occasional cockroach. They are not my friends.

Yes. With a vengeance! But not with my bare hands. Ew!

YOU KILL MOTHS @elbanditoroso??? What kind of monster are you?? Do you kill butterflies too??

^^^^Strange equivalence there @Dutchess_III Butterflies aren’t munching on his wool suit like moths are. Butterflies aren’t messing his porchlight like moths are.

16 years ago I caught a spider in a pop bottle to look at it. It lost 2 of its legs, and I felt sorry for it.
I put a little bit of water in it. For it to drink.

It made a web and I assumed that it was hungry. I let it out in the grass and never saw it again.

I hope that It was able to survive.

36 years ago I captured a monarch caterpillar, who was preparing to pupate, in a jar. I put a stick in the jar. The critter finished the job in the jar! Then he hatched! I put the jar on the front porch with the lid off. He hopped on the edge of the jar and my 3 year old and I watched him dry his wings. Then he fluttered away.
Pretty dang cool.

I would NOT hurt a fly; but, I’d squish that sucker so fast that it won’t have time to hurt!!!

I never see them anymore, but yes, I would swat it with haste.

I hate the crunch and unsanitary feeling of killing bugs, but I will if I have to.

I’d rather crunch them and pick them up with a kleenex than have one fly into my mouth.

One time I got home from work. The kids had hung a fly strip I didn’t even know I had. It was packed with flies. Never saw so many flies! They all died with no help from me.

Ah, a frequent flier in your house.

LOL!!

I catch them with my chopsticks and eat them as fresh sushi.

OK Rainman!

I get rid of them by any means possible once they start to annoy me. I spared them only if my kids were watching.

No, actually. The only beings I kill are ticks, and I don’t like doing that either. I have empathy for insects because I believe they can feel pain. So when people kill flies or spiders that feels to me like they’re murdering a rabbit or something. I don’t much mind very quick death in this situation. But insects writhing around, slugs half-squashed, the toads dying from being partly run over in front of our house…I feel all that, it makes me queasy, and it can ruin my day.

I saw one on my counter. I thought it was a crumb so I tried to wipe it off. Fast and Hard. Poor little guy was dead before I realized my mistake. Oops. I keep having this same problem with misidentifying them.

Almost never.
I try to catch them, and let them outside.
I only kill things that attack me.

I will bare hand a spider, or even a roach. To get them out of somewhere they shouldn’t be.

Mosquitoes, gnats, “no-see-ums,” fleas, and Horse flies, get no mercy.

@MrGrimm888 I’m happy to escort spiders out of the house but flies I just can’t abide.

Would you kill an ant? They seem like such clean and helpful critters.

@janbb that’s your right.

@Dutchess_III If they’re crawling all ove my kitchen, I will.

My preference is to have it fly away free.

I have a tennis racket looking thing that you push a button and it electrocutes them. I don’t want to jinx myself, but I have never had a fly in my current house. I have killed a couple of mosquitoes with that racket though. I think you should buy the tennis racket. I don’t have this brand, this is just an example. https://www.amazon.com/BLACK-DECKER-Electric-Swatter-Mosquito/dp/B091V34XR5/ref=asc_df_B091V34XR5/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=632227819823&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=674663433706823573&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9052975&hvtargid=pla-1426038102169&psc=1&mcid=94405bfeef5536c69b697458b742f868&gclid=CjwKCAiAi6uvBhADEiwAWiyRdp3vYzbfNn5oTk2tYBxB5jtgyTzNz8Wg0rb6Aqtr7jvulxFHu_7YAhoC-J4QAvD_BwE

When I lived in Tennessee a horsefly got into my house two separate times, and they bite. I couldn’t get it. I was afraid to go to sleep at night. I left a light on in a far away room hoping it would attract it. I definitely would have killed it.

I was laying on my bed yesterday, looking at the computer, and all of a sudden I could smell this smell, and I thought it smelled like a stink bug. I also heard a little buzzing sound. I sat up and the cat was on the bed next to me, and I smelled his fur because I was thinking maybe he isn’t washing himself so well and his fur is smelly. It wasn’t the cat, so I went to the mirror and I didn’t see a bug. I was about 10 feet away from the bed and I still smelled that smell, so I knew that there might be a stink bug on me.

I went into the bathroom where there is the medicine cabinet that has three doors on it, so you can see the sides of your head. I told myself you’re probably going to see a stink bug, so don’t freak out. Just say calm, don’t freak out. I looked at my hair in the mirror and then I saw the stink bug under my hair, on the collar of my tee shirt. I lifted the shirt straight up over my head and I put the shirt under the running water, and I brushed the stink bug down the drain.

I told my daughter about it later and she said I should have let him live.

I don’t think we have stink bugs in Florida.

The only bugs I go out of my way to kill are ants. We’ve had an unusually warm winter here in southern Wisconsin and we’ve had ants in our kitchen since January. They usually don’t make an appearance until March or April. They are such a nuisance. We have traps hidden so they are out of reach from our pets.

If we didn’t kill them they would be all over our counters and food in our pantry. Yes, our counters and pantry are clean. They know this is where food is and they are determined.

^Welcome (back) to Fluther stranger.

Aww, thanks. :)

@jonsblond Your ants are probably invasive Argentine ants. Kill away.