Richmond Hill resident David Freeman says he’s found a solution to the ever-so-annoying deer flies in the area: a painted milk jug.
Freeman said he read about the idea four or five years ago in the Bryan County News and thought it was sort of silly. But he gave it a try, and it worked.
"I saw this in the paper a few years ago about the people in The Cove who had discovered this being used in Minnesota and brought it back here," Freeman said. "I thought it was crazy and sounded stupid."
Now he swears by it.
"It works, it absolutely does," he said.
The method Freeman now uses involves a milk jug, a piece sand paper, a can or royal blue sand paper, some Tangle Footand a stick.
Freeman said deer flies are attracted to the color royal blue.
Here’s the method he’s adopted:
Take a milk jug and sand it so that it will hold the spray paint. Paint the jug and when it dries, cover it in Tangle Foot, an extremely sticky substance that can be found at the local hardware store.
Then hang the jug on a stick in the yard and – viola! – sit back and watch it work.
"Deer flies are attracted to royal blue," he said. "They will land on the jug and will stick to it and can’t leave."
Freeman said he first tried the method just because he was curious. He said he first used a blue bucket and walked around his yard.
"The deer flies came to the bucket like crazy," he said. "I use milk jugs now because buckets cost money and the jugs work just as well."
Freeman suggests hanging the jug or placing it on the end of a bamboo stick. He said the flies like things that move.
He said one of the "traps" works for up to a month depending on how many flies and what other kinds of debris are caught by the goo.
"For people who have deer flies…it’s a great thing."