Plumstead Flying Insect Control

Plumstead is a settled, leafy suburb with long-standing families, a lot of oak and jacaranda shade and older homes that have been added onto over the years. That patchwork of old and new building is what keeps us busy here.

Flying insects in Plumstead: what we see

Wasps nest in eaves and garden sheds through summer, and fruit flies build up around Main Road food outlets.

Plumstead sits below the Constantiaberg on the wetter side of the peninsula, so winters are properly damp. Mature trees and established gardens give squirrels and roof rats easy highways from one property to the next. The railway line between Wynberg and Diep River also acts as a corridor for rodents.

Signs to look for

1. You hear whining at night and wake up with fresh bites on exposed arms and ankles.
2. A sudden swarm of large blowflies appears indoors, which often points to something dead in the roof or wall.
3. Small moths flutter out of the pantry or out of a cupboard full of woollens.
4. Flies keep gathering around the same window, light or rubbish area even after you have cleaned and sprayed.
5. Paper wasps are coming and going from the same spot under the eaves, a gutter or a garden umbrella.
6. Small flies hover over the fruit bowl, the recycling bin or the drip tray under a bar tap.

Something most people miss

Buzzing bug zappers in a kitchen can do more harm than good, because they can scatter insect fragments around. Glue board light traps are the better choice anywhere near food.

How we handle flying insect control in Plumstead

We start by identifying the insect properly, because a drain fly needs a completely different fix from a house fly or a mosquito. Breeding sites come first: drains are cleaned out and treated with a larvicide or bio-enzyme product, standing water is tipped or treated, and waste areas are sorted out. Only then do we use residual sprays on resting surfaces such as window frames and wall tops, fly bait stations away from food, and ULV fogging where a large space needs a quick knockdown. In commercial kitchens and food stores we install insect light traps with glue boards so there is constant monitoring between visits. Wasp nests are treated with a dust or spray directly into the nest and removed once the colony is dead.

Want the full step-by-step? See how our flying insect control service works.

Stopping a repeat visit

• Pour boiling water down slow drains weekly and scrub the inside of the drain pipe with a brush, since that slime is where drain flies breed.
• Tip out pot plant saucers, birdbaths and anything else that holds water for more than a few days.
• Keep wheelie bins closed, rinse them out in summer, and park them away from the kitchen door.
• Check eaves, carports and garden furniture in early spring for small paper wasp nests while they are still easy to deal with.
• Fit fly screens on kitchen windows and keep a self-closing door or strip curtain on back doors that open onto bins.

What affects the price

The price depends on which insect we are treating, because a single wasp nest is a very different job from a fly problem in a large food factory. The size of the property, how many breeding sites there are and how hard they are to get at, such as roof voids or sealed drains, all affect the time on site. Commercial sites with light traps and scheduled visits are usually best quoted as a contract, and we give free quotes once we know what is flying.

Fly swatters, screens and a good bin routine handle a lot of household fly problems, and we would rather you did that than empty a can of spray into the kitchen. Where DIY falls down is when the source is hidden, like a dead rat in the ceiling, a broken drain under the floor or a wasp nest in a wall cavity. If you are still seeing the same insects two weeks after cleaning up, the breeding site is somewhere you have not found yet.

Questions we get asked in Plumstead

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