11 Easy Ways To Get Rid Of Flies In Your Garage (And Keep Them Out)

If you have flies in your garage, eating your things or breeding in there, you’re probably wondering how to get them out and keep them out.

Below, I’ve put together a list of the 11 easiest, quickest and cheapest ways to get rid of all the flies in your garage. You’ll find proven methods and helpful products with Amazon links to end your fly problem once and for all…

Close all windows, doors, and cracks

So you have flies in your garage. If you want to get rid of them, start by stopping more flies from getting inside.

Close any doors and windows, and seal any cracks in the walls or roof of the garage where flies might be getting in. If you need to leave a window open for fresh air, keep a small fan blowing against the window so flies can’t fly into your garage.

For more info, read this blog post for a list of all the ways flies might be getting into your home or garage.

If you really have to keep the garage door open or you don’t have a door on your garage, you can stop flies from entering by putting up a garage door screen like this one from Amazon.

Once you’ve stopped the flies from coming in, you need to remove their food source and break their lifecycle, so they stop breeding in there and making more flies.

Clean out and remove food sources

Different flies come into your garage looking for different things.

Most house flies (click here to find out how to identify house flies) come into your garage because they can smell food – rubbish, recyclables, a cat litter box, or any food or drink lying around. Other flies come in for different reasons. Like drain flies, who are looking for standing water.

It’s time to clean out and get rid of any food sources.

Give your garage a good clean and purge. Wash away food or drink spills, and dry up liquids and standing water. If you keep a litter box in your garage, make sure to clean it out at least once a day as flies are famous for feasting on feces.

Take out the trash and lock lids

Flies love eating trash and food waste, so if you keep your garbage and/or recyclables in your garage, you could be inviting flies in. There are three ways to fix this:

• Remove all the rubbish and trash cans from the garage and put the trash cans somewhere else, perhaps in a far corner of the yard. Or throw rubbish in shopping bags and take the bags to your outside trash can daily, so all garbage is kept outside the house.
• Buy trash cans with locking lids, so flies can’t access what’s inside. Or get a trash can with an odor filter so flies can’t smell what’s in there.
• Carry on using the trash cans you have but stick a garbage guard under the lid. This nifty little device kills flies and other insects in trash cans for up to 4 months.

Store things that attract flies in airtight containers

Flies like to eat some strange things. If flies are coming into your garage to eat whatever you are storing in there, keep these items in airtight containers.

These steel rust-proof bins have locking lids that no fly will be able to break through. Or you can go for smaller plastic containers with airtight lids that are also available in different sizes.

Catch young or adult flies with sticky traps

Now it’s time to catch flies and break their breeding cycle.

Here are some of the best sticky products (with Amazon links) to kill the flies buzzing around your garage:

• Hang sticky fly ribbons from the roof of your garage or stick these window fly traps to any windows where you see flies trying to get out. These sticky options are a safe, non-toxic way to quickly and easily catch flies in your garage.
• If you have a serious fly infestation in your garage and need a tougher solution, try hanging a few TrapStiks. These are perfectly safe for indoor use and have no odor or chemicals.

Use fly bait to kill flies

If you keep the doors and windows sealed, and you know you aren’t letting more flies into your garage, kill the ones that are stuck in there with fly bait. Here’s how:

1. Put a quarter or half a cup of fly bait in an old plastic container or aluminum pan.
2. Wet the bait with some cold water or beer.
3. Put the container on a high shelf or ledge in your garage, out of reach of children and pets.
4. Wait for the flies to eat the bait and start dying.
5. Some people put the dead flies in the bait container and cover them with more bait because dead flies attract more flies. If you don’t want to do that, pick up the dead flies and throw them away as soon as you see them, so no animals or children get hold of the dead, poisoned flies.
6. Top up the pellets whenever necessary.
7. Once all the flies are gone from your garage, seal up and dispose of the bait containers.

Top tip: Don’t put out fly bait and leave windows or the garage door open. If you do, you’ll simply attract more flies in from the outside.

Remove standing water and liquids from the garage

Some flies, especially drain flies, come into your garage if there is standing or stagnant water in there. This includes water standing in drain pipes or buckets, or rainwater that has pooled inside the garage doors.

When drain flies find standing water and a humid or moist environment, they lay eggs and breed very quickly. What starts out as one fly leads to hundreds of flies in a few short weeks.

To get rid of flies in your garage, remove any standing water and take steps to make sure that water doesn’t stand there again.

Click here to find out how to identify drain flies and get rid of them.

Smack flies with a fly swatter

If there are only a few flies in your garage, hit the ones you can find with a fly swatter and throw away their dead bodies so these don’t attract more flies.

If you want to use a fly swatter, you can try:

• These traditional fly swatters. I find it easiest to kill flies with these types of swatters when they land on something and are sitting still.
• This patented smart fly swatter that not only kills flies (and other bugs) but picks them up for you too, so you can throw the dead fly straight into the trash can. No more picking up dead flies.
• An electric fly swatter, like this rechargeable racket. These types of swatters are good for zapping flies in the air. If your aim isn’t very good, go for the large size to improve your chances of success.
• A bug-a-salt with rapid fire and sight will make sure you always hit that fly. Bug-a-salts are made for serious fly seekers who want to kill these pests with regular table salt. They certainly aren’t toys and can only be sold to those over the age of 18.

Fog your garage

If you aren’t winning and there is a heavy fly infestation in your garage, or maggots, you might want to consider fogging the room.

How to fog your garage to kill flies and maggots:

1. Buy fog spray, such as the one that comes in an easy-to-use aerosol can.
2. Close all the windows and doors in your garage.
3. Spray the product into the air in short blasts around the room. There is a long pipe on the can so you can spray the product directly into cracks or crevices where flies might be hiding.
4. Leave the garage immediately, closing the door behind you.
5. After a few hours, go inside and open all the windows and doors to let in fresh air. The product does have a strong smell, so you might want to put an electric fan in the garage to help circulate the air and get the smell out.
6. Now clean up all the dead flies.

Make your own fly traps with soda bottles

Did you know that you can make your own fly traps and put them in your garage to kill flies?

It’s very easy to do!

Here’s how to make fly traps from old soda bottles:

1. Remove the lid and cut the top quarter off the soda bottle with a pair of scissors.
2. Make a liquid mixture that’s enough to fill the bottom quarter of the soda bottle. The liquid needs to be something that attracts flies, so they fly into the bottle and drown. The liquid can be a mixture of apple cider vinegar with a few drops of dish soap, sugar water, or soda.
3. Turn the top part of the soda bottle upside down and place it inside the bottom of the bottle.
4. Place a few of these soda bottle fly traps around your garage, where children and pets can’t reach them.

You should soon see drowned flies in the liquid at the bottom of the soda bottle traps. Once there are quite a few flies in a bottle, throw the bottle away and make a fresh trap.

Keep grass short and compost away from your garage

Flies love hiding and breeding in long grass and compost piles. To minimize the number of flies flying into your garage, keep the nearby lawn trimmed and compost piles as far away from the garage as possible.

If you want to keep a compost pile in your yard, here are some tips to keep the flies out of the garage:

• A hot, decomposing compost heap will not attract flies, but it does need to be kept hot – as high as 130°F (54°C). Each day, remove some of the top debris and take the compost pile’s temperature about 6 inches deep. A hot compost pile’s temperature should drop to about 100°F (38°C) every 2 to 4 days. When it does, it’s time to turn the pile with a pitch fork to aerate it and bring up the temperature again.
• Don’t add meat, animal feces, or cooking oil to your compost pile. These attract flies, along with many other pests such as rats.
• Don’t let the compost pile get too wet or stay wet for a long time. If this happens, the compost will turn to sludge that attracts flies (especially drain flies) and won’t decompose into rich soil like you hoped.

Use strong smells that flies hate

Flies have a very good sense of smell that they use to sniff out and taste food. But some smells are very strong – strong enough to overpower the smell of food in an area and make it difficult or impossible for flies to find and taste food there.

Flies hate these smells and stay away from them, so people use these smells to repel flies from their garage. For example, flies hate the smell of eucalyptus, cloves, citronella, lavender, white vinegar, and basil.

Click here for the full list of smells flies hate and how to use these smells to repel flies.