Review of Zero In Outdoor Fly Catcher

The highlights: 

What is it?: A fly (and wasp) catcher

Does it work?: Yes

Would I buy it again?: Yes

Other options?: loads of other options out there for fly catchers and zappers and papers etc – a quick google will bring up options

Where to buy:  You can get this on Amazon: you can buy the twin pack, a triple twin pack, and the refills.

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How it works

This fly catcher is pretty effective. The twin pack comes in a set of two, and each catcher has the powder that you empty into the tub (and then add 300ml of water to), as well as the tie to attach it somewhere outside. I would not recommend using this inside the house – see the section below regarding the smell discussion!

It’s plastic and has a screw-on lid that is designed in a way that the flies and wasps can enter the tub but then can’t get back out again. I imagine it lures them in because there’s something attractive about the liquid once you’ve mixed the powder with the water to create a yellowy mix. According to the description, it is non-hazardous and non-toxic. I hung it out of reach of the dog, who seemed to not even notice it being there! That is, apart from the odd sniff in the air, which could have been anything to be honest – he sniffs the air randomly a lot. You also don’t need to worry about this mixture separating slightly with the powder dropping to the bottom, mine did and it still worked very effectively! Also, when I looked at the contents it caught flies and wasps, but no bees which is good! Perhaps the entrance is too small for bees to get into? Or maybe it doesn’t smell good to bees? Either way, I was happy to see that no bees had fallen victim to this little trap’s clutches!

It comes with a plastic tie so you can hang it up, and because it’s a twist tie, it’s pretty easy to hang, and less likely to damage say a tree if you hang it on there. You will also need to top up the water if it starts to dry out – you have to hang it in the sun which means this will evaporate, and the water is needed to attract the flies, but will also (I imagine) reduce the risk of the inside of this turning from flies into maggots!

The description says to allow 24 hours for it to start working (perhaps because it partially works by the heat from the sun intensifying the scent that lures in the flies???) but mine started working before that. I did hang it on a very sunny day, so maybe the intensity of the heat from the sun made this start working almost immediately?  Once it was hanging, I took a series of photos…here it is after a few hours of being hung, and it has already captured 2 victims!

This is 24 hours later

And this is 6 days after that

After 3 weeks it was jam packed full of dead flies and wasps! The description says it can catch up to 20,000 flies per refill, but I’m not gonna lie guys, I didn’t sit and count them! It does look pretty full though!

So, as you can see, this does work to capture the flies and wasps! I hung this up just outside my back door with the double doors open, and it significantly reduced the number of flies coming in the house. Although the odd one did evade the allure of the fly trap and make its way into the house, but nowhere near the number of flies that had been trespassing in my kitchen before I hung this up!  

Does it smell?

When you first hang it up and for a few days afterwards, it doesn’t smell bad at all. However, as time goes by the trap starts to fill with dead flies and wasps. The carcasses of those are probably rotting away sat in liquid in a plastic container in full sunlight, which I imagine makes the inside of this little trap pretty hot and pretty rancid! As the dead bodies pile up the smell from this intensifies and can get pretty horrific! I was in my kitchen one day with the door open, and I could smell something awful! I was wandering around the kitchen trying to sniff out the stench, when I realised that the awful smell was wafting in from the fly trap hanging outside the double doors!

It doesn’t smell terrible when you first fill and hang it, so I would recommend that you empty this sooner than I did to avoid the smelly kitchen situation! Also, because the attachments are little plastic ties, you could move one that is starting to smell, but not yet full of flies, to a point further away from the door and then hang a fresh one near the door again. That way you might get some of the flies before they even come near the door to the house! The description says it attracts flies up to 10 metres radius from the point of hanging and you need to hang it somewhere in full sunlight and out of the wind, so it may work just as well to have it a little further from the door. If you have a large garden, you can maybe even hang a few around the garden to help attract the flies before they go anywhere near your door! Sadly, my garden is not big enough for that to test the theory, so if you do have a larger garden and decide to give this a go, please do comment below to let me know how effective it is!

As the smell is because of the dead flies, rather than the liquid itself, this also means that you can start a fresh one (or two) of these to hang around if you’re having a BBQ or other outdoor event that usually attracts the flies and wasps. That said, I haven’t tested how effective this is at attracting the flies and wasps when they have competing BBQ smells to lure them in! So, if you do give this a go for that purpose, please do comment below on how effective these little fly traps are!

Reusable and the emptying process

This fly catcher is also reusable, so you can empty out all the dead flies and give it a rinse to use again. If this sounds far too off putting for you, though, you can also just bin it and buy another one (but keep reading how this might cause you smelly bin problems!). You can buy the refill sachets of the powder separately. The description says to empty and refill every 2-3 weeks, which seems fair as mine was full by the end of week 3! The description also says that when emptying this, you can either bury the contents, or put it in a plastic bag within the household bin. I didn’t bury this in the garden as I have a very small garden, so didn’t really have anywhere to empty it out and bury it!  If you have a large garden, then burying it is an option for sure!  

For me, I put it in the bin, but where I am the council collect black bags, and the liquid had leaked out of the black bag and gone all of the floor outside my house, which then smelt awful! So, I had to go out with some Zoflora mixed with water to swill it away! As such, if you do empty it into the bin, I would highly recommend that you do so by using multiple plastic bags and wrapping it up super well so that the liquid doesn’t seep out! I would also recommend that you wait until bin day so that you don’t potentially have the liquid seeping out for too long if it does accidently leak!

So, all in all, this does catch flies (and wasps) very effectively! Despite the smell, I would use this again because of how effective it is, although I’ve learned my lesson and would empty it more often or rotate the full ones further way from the entrance to the house! If you want to buy some, here’s the Amazon links again for: the twin pack, triple twin pack, and the refills.

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with love 

Rebecca 

xxx

P.S. Please note that this blog may contain affiliate links (including those to Amazon). When you click on the link and purchase the product, I receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.