After a long, stressful day at work, you decide to relax at the beach with your friends or family; then the beach pests arrive! While the sound of the ocean waves and the warm sand beneath your toes may make you feel like you’re in paradise, a bite from a beach fly will quickly bring you back to reality.
The beach is supposed to be a stress-relieving haven where you can relax and enjoy the pleasures of surfing, being close to nature, sunbathing and snorkeling, and building sandcastles with the kids and the last thing you would like to be is bitten, infected, and have your vacation cut short. The reality of owning or renting a waterfront property is that biting flies, No-See-Ums, and even mosquitos can cause you to flee.
This post will enlighten you with the different biting flies that may appear on a beach and disrupt your relaxing time and how to get rid of them using the best insect repellant for beach flies.
Identifying Beach Flies
While relaxing on the beach, the bites you might get are usually caused by small pests known as midges, horse flies, or No-See-Ums. These difficult to detect bugs can drink blood and bite your flesh, resembling mosquito bites.
However, these flies are more dangerous parasites than mosquitoes because their bites can leave a painful, huge, and itchy scar. Their scars, which usually appear as large bumps, can last for days, depending on their intensity.
You should be cautious of these biting flies at the beach since their saliva and bite contain allergens that can cause sand fever virus, skin bumps, or Carrison’s disease. They are brown with green compound eyes and a hairy thorax, head, and legs. When the environment is humid, they congregate in swarms and are drawn to movement.
Biting flies can also detect the carbon dioxide and lactic acid that our bodies naturally emit. In cold weather, they become inactive because the cold harms them and dehydrates their eggs. They prefer moist environments such as cracks, roads, and walls to settle.
Inspecting Insect Bites
Once you’ve determined which biting fly you’re dealing with, you can begin inspecting. During this step, you will need to identify where biting flies congregate. This will assist you in deciding where to concentrate insecticide treatment.
What to Look For
Look for fly infestations if you’re camping on a beach with many woodlands or tall dune grass or if you’re staying at a beach house, where they may congregate near windows.
Where to Look
Biting flies at the beach congregate in areas with moisture or a lot of activity that attracts them. They frequently congregate near wooded areas or marshes along the beach.
How to Avoid Beach Fly Bites
If you don’t own a beach property but are bothered by biting flies, the following options may allow you to enjoy your time near the water:
Use Repelling Lotion
Consult your doctor about appropriate lotions to keep flies at bay. Examine the ingredients to ensure you are not allergic to them. Normally, these lotions would need to be reapplied every five hours. There are also repellent sprays available.
Wear Light-colored Clothing
Dark colors allure biting flies, so pack and wear light-colored clothing to the beach. A swarm of flies would attack you if you wore dark colors. Choose clothing that covers your legs and arms as well.
Suck Them Up
Typically, people keep small, custom-made vacuum cleaners in their cars and on short vacations. You should keep one on hand if you intend to spend a couple of days at the beach. When you discover flies in your home, you can swat and vacuum them up.
Keep your food covered to keep flies from landing on it. Once they’re in the house, use insecticides or swat them. Then, use insecticide or repellent sprays in rooms to keep other flies out. Keep children away from flies because they may have low immunity or tolerance to the infestation or bite.
Keep Disinfectants
Keep herbs and medicines on hand if a sand gnat bites someone. If you plan to remain longer, curative creams may help contain the clot, stop the infestation from worsening, and reduce swelling, pain, and itching.
Getting Rid of Beach Flies on Your Property
Because the beach is public property, treating flying pests can be difficult. If you live in close quarters with everyone else, it may not be a good idea to use insecticides, and it may even be illegal.
If you have private beach property, you might have some control options for biting flies.
Use Viper RTU Insecticide
Viper RTU, a ready-to-use insecticide, contains permethrin and has a pleasant country scent. It comes with a handy spraying attachment you can use to spray throughout your beach house property as a barrier spray on door frames, surfaces, and around the perimeter of the property. When spraying, make sure you’re at least ten feet away from any water source.
Use Stryker 100 via Tri-Jet Fogger
If you have a private beach property, the Tri-Jet Fogger is a great product to use to fog your property and yard to control mosquitos, flies, and other flying insects all season long. Stryker 100, a pyrethrum-based mosquito fogging concentrate, can also repel or kill other flying pests like the ones mentioned above.
If you own the place, you can control the problem with pyrethrin fogging material and a fogger. The Tri-Jet Fogger is simple to use: pour in the proper ratio of water and Stryker 100 fogging concentrate (the label recommends four ounces per acre for fogging applications), close the lid, and you’re ready to fog.
Set the fogger close to the area you would like to fog or hold it and guide the fog to a particular region. Biting flies either die or flee the area quickly. Wait for the product to disperse (30 minutes to an hour), enter the treated area, and enjoy yourself knowing that the biting flies will be kept at bay for your entire stay at the beach.
Contact a pest control professional if you sense a fly infestation in or around your home. A competent professional will be able to perform an inspection and recommend the best course of action.