Blast from the past: Sticky fly paper was a common sight in NI homes during the summer months

With summer comes flies – fruit flies, house flies and big buzzing bluebottles. So how to get rid of the blighters?

As a child I remember swirly, sticky fly paper hanging from light fittings in my home, and that of everyone else. It was a stomach-churning sight to behold.

The roll of tape would unfurl into a yellow streamer of death. Each day the tape would become blacker and blacker as more hapless flies literally met a sticky end.

I can recall the fly-festooned paper hanging in shops too, the flies polka-dotting the paper like blackcurrants.

Flypaper was invented in 1861 by a German baker who hung a sheet of molasses-coated wrapping paper in his window. In the years to come, arsenic was added (although not these days), making it a nifty purchase for those wanting more than flies undone.

I’m sure some people still use the stuff, but the concept is truly nauseating – dead flies sticking to dangling, diaphanous paper. There are other less repugnant ways to literally have them drop like flies….a swatter, a spray, apple cider vinegar, a glass of red wine is meant to work (if it doesn’t attract the flies, then at least the fly-infested homeowner can have a swig and block out the buzz).