If you use a kitchen, whether it is in your house, a restaurant, or any other kind of business, flies buzzing around your restrooms or cooking areas may be embarrassing — or expensive, if you get punished by a health inspector for offenses. Although regular house flies and bottle flies are well recognized, you have likely seen a drain fly if you have ever seen something resembling a moth and a fly. Managing a fly infestation is never a pleasant experience, but are drain flies dangerous? If you are conscious of drain fly infestations, contact Brooks Pest Control.
Are drain flies harmful?
Drain flies, often called sewer or moth flies, are small, gnat-like insects known as “true flies” since they possess just one set of wings. They typically inhabit locations with organic material that is damp, such as drains, compost piles, wet ground, and, of course, sewers. Drain flies are tiny insects resembling fruit flies with moth-like fuzzy wings. On average, they remain alive for two weeks and tend to be active in the evening.
Drain flies can become adults a week after laying eggs in organic waste in drains and sewage lines. If you have observed these insects emerging from any spot in your drainage system, you may have worried whether drain flies are harmful.
Drain flies are not dangerous to people or buildings in small numbers. Trouble will only start when they gather in enormous numbers. For example, drain flies can be a nuisance to you, your family, or customers because they transmit disease due to where they stay and are ugly, especially in kitchen areas.
- Sanitary risks
Drain flies are simply unhygienic. Drain flies are likely to gather in your kitchen or bathroom if there is rotting organic debris in a few of your drains, such as food, hair, skin, or feces. Drain flies, like every other fly species, contaminate any food they touch with the unpleasant and potentially dangerous food-borne diseases they eat and develop.
- Indication of poor conditions
Drain flies are frequently seen in pipes and drains that have drainage issues. Drain flies have plenty of time, food, and water to settle in whenever organic particles and water flow become obstructed by plumbing problems. This stagnant water and waste might pile up and create unpleasant odors, which may, in turn, draw more drain flies.
- Health department citations
However, drain flies pose greater risks for restaurants than just losing customers who come across flies of any kind. Due to insects’ and pests’ capacity to spread illnesses caused by food to diners, the Department of Health sets high standards for sanitation and pest control.
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