h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

My husband has just phoned with an odd question. Apparently, if you fill some clear plastic bag with water and hang them round a room, it will keep flies away. One of his colleagues saw this being done at a butcher's. When the butcher was asked why he did it, the butcher said he was given the tip when he went to Portugal. It does work - there were no flies in the butcher's shop. The question is, why (or how) does it work?

Hmm, I´ll have to try that. Maybe they´re afraid of water? I really can´t come up with anything better.

Maybe it raises the humidity in the room?

-- mikey

I thought about that one as well, but it doesn´t seem to affect them usually.

Maybe they're like cats and they don't like their own reflection?

One of my adores looking at her reflection in the mirror -- she'll sit there and talk to the mirror like a toddler does.


Mikey

Maybe they think that someone in the room has a serious illness, and they stay away to avoid contracting it. Since they are unfamiliar with the human concept of insanity, they probably don't have any other hypothesis for why someone would deliberately hang up water.

I reckon that they fly off in search of missing goldfish.

I did a quick websearch, and one website claimed that the ways in which light reflected off of the hanging bag of water (which is probably moving slightly), freaks out the flies because it makes it look like there's a lot more movement going on in the area than there really is.

Who knows....


Mikey

that sounds most like it to me
^. .^
= ' =

Bottles of water around the garden are supposed to help keep cats and even dogs away, so I suppose it's the same thing.