Comment by paul_manias | Hacker News Reader

Comment by paul_manias | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

This reminds me of the time I found two flies in my house despite the windows being closed. I vacuumed them up (more fun that way) and the next day there were two identical looking flies in the house. Did they get out of the vacuum cleaner? I vacuumed them up again.

The next day, same story. The flies were now appearing throughout the day. They all looked the same. Where the hell were they coming from? The windows were still closed. I kept vacuuming.

Eventually things were starting to get very irritating. I hunted for an entry point for days without finding anything and the flies just kept on appearing. I was pretty good at vacuuming flies by this point.

By day six I spotted a group of them hanging out near my Kentia palm. Aha! A fly had laid eggs in the soil of the plant. I had no idea that it was a suitable food source for larvae. Needless to say I quickly filled it with gravel and I guess that's the story of how I became a qualified Fly Detective.

Another fun thing you can do with flies, and also bees and wasps, apart from vacuuming them up, is put them on a leash. But first you have to freeze them.

Catch one in a cup or plastic bag and stick it in the freezer for about 10 minutes. When you take it out it will look dead, but it's not (unless you leave it in too long.) Being careful not to rip it's wings off, tie a small string or fishing line to one of it's legs.

In a few minutes it will thaw and start to walk around, and then start to fly. You can now walk it around the park like you were carrying a balloon.

That’s animal abuse.

Where would you say it falls on the spectrum of animal abuse in relation to going fishing, fly swatting, and walking the dog? Those are all activities I'm personally ok with.

*insect abuse

I think repeatidly slapping them with a pretty soft plastic attraption until they stop moving is even harsher though.

Or slapping them outta the air, trying to electrocute them but having too little power on the shitty device so only their wings get burned.

Or vacuuming them up

Or flushing them down the drain.

Honestly, whatever people usually do to them it's way way crueller

> I think repeatedly slapping them with a pretty soft plastic contraption until they stop moving is even harsher

It's soft to you, not to the fly. You don't slap a fly "until it stops moving". When you swat a fly, it explodes.

Not the big ones. The first slap stuns them at best, sometimes not even that.

This was far more engaging of a story than it deserves to be

That's scary. I used to be a hardcore insectaphobe, but I got over it over the last couple years. Now I don't care that much when I see insects in my house. But it is within reason! I wouldn't want bugs reproducing in my house, that sounds like a slippery slope!

> I wouldn't want bugs reproducing in my house, that sounds like a slippery slope!

Don’t Google dust mites.

Or Face Mites.

I admire your perception. I'm personally unable to distinguish different fly specimens, they all look the same to me.

It's only the size and age of them that makes one fly distinguishable from another. When they're all being born at the same time there's absolutely nothing that makes them distinct, and that's your clue that eggs have been laid somewhere in the vicinity.

> It's only the size and age of them that makes one fly distinguishable from another.

Because of their rarity, I find that the ones that wear tiny top hats are easily distinguishable too.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com