Fly Control & Electric Fly Killers
Flies are the pest most likely to be seen by a customer, an auditor and an environmental health officer in the same week. Controlling them is about removing what breeds them and closing how they get in, with units doing the last part of the job rather than the whole of it.
What Happens
First, find what is breeding them. A fly problem is a source problem, and the species tells you where to look. Fruit flies mean fermenting residue in drains, under equipment or in returns, drain flies mean a drain or a grease trap, blowflies mean something dead or decomposing waste outside, and house flies mean external waste or an open door onto it. Second, close the way in. Door discipline, screening, brush seals, air curtains where a door has to stay open, and mesh on vents. Third, install and service the units that catch what still gets through, sited where flies actually fly rather than where there is a spare socket. Done in that order, a site needs fewer units and gets a lower catch. Done in reverse, which is how most sites end up, you are buying glue boards forever.
Identification
Identifying the species is not academic. Each one points at a different source, and treating the wrong source is why fly problems come back.
The classic commercial fly. Breeds in waste, organic matter and spillage, usually arriving from outside through open doors and intake bays.
Large, loud and a serious contamination risk in food areas. Point to decomposing material, external bins or something dead in a void or roof space.
Tiny and persistent. Breed in fermenting residue in drains, under equipment, in returns and in anything sugary left standing. A hygiene problem before a pest problem.
Breed in the film inside drains, grease traps and under damaged flooring. No amount of spraying the room touches them; the drain is the treatment.
Autumn invaders of roof spaces and upper rooms in rural and semi-rural buildings, arriving in numbers to overwinter rather than breeding indoors.
Overwatered planting, damp organic matter and stored materials. Common in offices, receptions and healthcare settings with interior planting.
How We Work
The species names the source. Spraying a room for drain flies changes nothing, because the population is in the drain and will be back in days.
Drains, grease traps, waste, spillage, returns and standing water. This is the part that reduces the numbers rather than the part that catches them.
Doors, screens, vents and the loading bay. Fly pressure is a proofing problem long before it is a unit problem.
In the flight path, at the right height, away from doors and competing light, and never above open product. Position is most of a unit’s performance.
Electric Fly Killers
Shield supplies, sites and services electric fly killers across commercial kitchens, food production, warehousing, hospitality and healthcare. That includes glue board units for open food areas where an electrocution grid is inappropriate, and shatterproof lamps wherever product is exposed. Siting is the part that decides whether a unit earns its place: within the flight path, around head height or as the unit specifies, not opposite a door or window where it recruits flies from outside, and never above open product or a preparation surface. Servicing covers glue board changes, cleaning, catch removal and lamp replacement ahead of the fly season rather than after the UV output has already fallen away, because a tube that still lights up can have stopped attracting anything. LED conversion is the current upgrade: longer lamp life, lower running cost and far less lamp waste than fluorescent tubes, which on a multi-unit site adds up quickly. Our LED cost calculator gives you the figure for your own site.
Audit Compliance
Under BRCGS, SALSA, Red Tractor, AIB and the rest, electric fly killers are one of the first things looked at in a food area, and the findings are predictable. A unit above an open product line, a unit facing a door, shatterproof lamps missing where product is exposed, no record of lamp replacement, full glue boards, or a year of catch data nobody has interpreted. The last one is the difference between a pest contractor and a pest programme. Shield numbers and maps every unit, records each service, replaces lamps on schedule, and produces catch analysis that reads the numbers rather than reporting them, so a rising fruit fly catch in one zone becomes a drain investigation rather than a line on a chart.
Catch Analysis
Every glue board is a sample. Which species, how many, which unit, which month: taken together that is a map of where flies are entering and what is breeding them, and it is the single most underused piece of information on most commercial sites. A blowfly spike in one zone points outside, to waste or something decomposing. A steady fruit fly count under a production line points at residue beneath equipment. A seasonal house fly climb across units near the intake bay points at door discipline rather than at the units. Shield trends the catch by unit and by month and interprets it, and on contracted sites it sits in the Insectram portal alongside the rest of the evidence, which is what turns a fly programme into something an auditor is pleased to see.
Domestic and Rural
Every autumn, rural and semi-rural buildings get cluster flies: large numbers arriving to overwinter in roof spaces, lofts and upper rooms, usually on the warm side of the building. They do not breed indoors and they are not a hygiene problem, which is why household sprays achieve very little against the numbers involved. Treatment is the roof space itself, timed to when they arrive rather than after they have settled through the building, and repeated in bad years because the building’s aspect is what attracts them and that does not change. Farmhouses, converted barns, churches and country properties are the usual callers, and it is worth booking before the first cold snap rather than after.
AI Pest Management
Fly control produces more usable data than any other service, and on most sites it is thrown away with the glue board. In Insectram every unit is numbered and mapped, every service is dated, and the catch is trended by unit, species and month, so the pattern is visible: which zone, which season, which door. That is what makes a fly programme shrink over time rather than repeat, and what puts an answer in front of an auditor before the question is finished.
Areas We Cover
Based in Selby, Shield covers commercial and domestic property across Yorkshire, the Humber and the North of England. Independent since 2002, BPCA registered, CRRU compliant, £10m public liability, 24-hour emergency response.
Tell us what you are seeing, where, and what the area is used for. If you already have fly units, tell us how many and roughly how old, and we will tell you whether they are in the right places before we quote you for more.
A: Fewer than most sites have, if the proofing and the hygiene are right. Units catch what gets through; they do not control a fly population that has a breeding source inside the building. The honest answer comes from the survey, which looks at the doors, the drains, the waste and the flight paths first, and then works out how many units the remaining risk justifies and where they go. Anyone quoting a number before seeing the site is selling units rather than solving flies.
A: On most multi-unit sites, yes. LED lamps last considerably longer than fluorescent tubes, use less energy and generate far less lamp waste, so the saving comes from running cost and replacement cycle rather than from catching more flies. Whether it pays back quickly depends on how many units you run and how long they are switched on, which is what our LED cost calculator is for.
A: Because the population is in the drain rather than in the room. Drain and phorid flies breed in the organic film inside pipework, grease traps and under damaged flooring, and adults you kill are replaced within days by the next generation emerging. The treatment is the drain: identifying which one, cleaning or treating the film, and fixing whatever keeps it wet. Spraying the room kills the flies you can see and changes nothing about tomorrow.
