Shared by Valarie Erekson

As we sat in an enclosed patio section of a restaurant, we happened to notice a couple of zip lock baggies pinned to a post and a wall. The bags were half filled with water, each contained 4 pennies, and they were zipped shut. The owner told us that these baggies kept the flies away! We actually watched some flies come in the open window, stand around on the window sill, and then fly out again. And there were no flies in the eating area!

Comments from others:

Zip-lock water bags

Sue: Many people swear that a zip-lock bag filled half-way with water and attached over entry-ways will repel flies. No one yet knows how or why it works, but there is speculation that it has something to do with the way the moving water refracts light.

Danielle Martin: Fill a ziplock bag with water and 5 or 6 pennies and hang it in the problem area. In my case it was a particular window in my home. It had a slight but significant passage way for insects. Ever since I have done that, it has kept flies and wasps away. Some say that wasps and flies mistake the bag for some sort of other insect nest and are threatened by this.

Ann: I tried the ziplock bag and pennies this weekend. I have a horse trailer with full living quarters. The flies were very bad this weekend while I was camping. I put the baggie with pennies above the door of the LQ. NOT ONE FLY came in. The horse trailer part had many. Not sure why it works but it does!!

Maggie: I swear by the plastic bag of water trick. I have them on side porch (our house entry) and all around the basement door. We saw these in Northeast Missouri at an Amish grocery store & have used them since. They say it works because a fly sees a reflection & won't come around.

Just DJ: Regarding the science behind zip log bags of water? My research found that each of the millions of molecules of water presents its own prism effect and given that flies have a lot of eyes, to them it's like a zillion disco balls reflecting light, colors and movement in a dizzying manner. When you figure that flies are basically prey for many other bugs, animals, birds, etc., they simply won't take the risk of being around that much perceived action. I moved to a rural area and thought these "hillbillies" were just yanking my city boy chain but I tried it, worked immediately! We went from hundreds of flies to seeing the occasional one, but he don't hang around long.