Flying Insect Control across Cape Town

The house fly and the lesser house fly are the everyday nuisance indoors, while blowflies show up in force wherever there is meat waste, a dead rodent in a ceiling or overflowing bins. Fruit flies and drain flies are the small ones that hover around fruit bowls, bar drip trays and bathroom drains, and they breed in a film of organic muck rather than in the open. Culex mosquitoes bite at night across the Cape Flats and along the vleis and canals, and Aedes species turn up where water sits in pot plant saucers and blocked gutters. The European paper wasp, Polistes dominula, is an invasive species that has spread through the Western Cape and builds open umbrella nests under eaves and in garden furniture. Indian meal moths and clothes moths round out the list indoors, one in the pantry and the other in the wardrobe.

Flying insects in Cape Town keep a fairly predictable calendar, and much of the work of keeping them down is checking the right thing at the right time of year. Here is what we would look at around a home or business, season by season, plus the autumn swarm that catches people off guard every year.

A seasonal flying insect checklist for Cape Town

Spring: September to November

Get the property ready before the heat arrives. Repair torn window screens, check that self-closing doors actually close, and look at the mesh on rainwater tank inlets. Clear out the back of the pantry too, because old packets of flour and birdseed are where moths start once the house warms up. This is also when paper wasp queens begin new nests.

Summer: December to February

Bins, outdoor dining and holidays dominate. If you are going away, empty the fruit bowl and the kitchen caddy, and pour water into floor drains in rooms you seldom use so their traps do not dry out and let flies and smells up. Restaurants with outdoor tables should check the glue boards in their light traps more often during this stretch.

Outdoor lighting matters more than people expect. Many night-flying insects head for bright white light, so warmer or yellow-toned bulbs on the stoep attract fewer of them. Mounting the light away from the door and angling it back towards the entrance means insects gather on the wall, not in the doorway every time someone steps inside.

Autumn: March to May

Watch for winged ants and termites after the first proper rain, covered below. Autumn is also when winter woollens come out of storage, so shake them out in the sun and check for moth damage before they go back into the cupboard.

Winter: June to August

Most flying insects slow down, which makes this the best time for maintenance. Fix the cracked drain, replace the broken bin lid and clear gutters after the big storms. Food businesses can use the quieter months to plan a contract before spring.

Flying ants and termites after the first rains

Every year, after the first decent rain following a dry summer, people call about swarms of winged insects pouring out of the lawn, paving cracks or a wall. These are mating flights. The winged ants or termites leave the colony, drop their wings within hours, and most die or are eaten by birds. The swarm itself does no harm and needs no spraying.

What matters is telling the two apart, and where they came from:

• Ants have a pinched waist, elbowed antennae, and front wings longer than the back pair.
• Termites have a thick, straight waist, straight beaded antennae, and four wings of about equal length.

A swarm from the lawn or the verge is a nuisance for an afternoon. Termites coming out of a skirting board, door frame or interior wall are a different story, because they mean a colony has access to the building, and that is worth having us look at. Sweep up a few wings and bodies and send us a photo on WhatsApp.

Which flying insect page do you need?

If you already know what is flying, the specific pages go into much more detail:

• Flies around bins, drains, fruit or a smell from the ceiling: fly control.
• Whining and bites at night: mosquito control.
• Paper wasps under the eaves or in the garden: wasp control.
• Small moths in the pantry or the wardrobe: moth control.

Not sure? Send a photo and we will tell you, and the suburb list below has local notes for each area we cover.

Quick answers

Flying Insect Control by suburb