# Will a baggie and pennies keep bugs away?



## JimP (Feb 8, 2002)

Dunno if it works or not but I'm going to try it...whats to lose except a couple minutes of your time?
You still keep the pennies afterward.
I know the pop bottle funnel and sugar water trick does work on wasps and yellow jackets.
I'll report in a few days.

Anyone else trying it file a report too...









Not much can ruin a summer barbecue, except flies.

Pesky flies run rampant in the summer heat, flying around your burgers and hot dogs and landing on your BBQ ribs. 


No need to worry, however, because an Instructables contributor detailed a homemade way to keep flies out of your backyard BBQs for good.

“You can buy expensive bug zappers but why when you could take the safe and humane approach?,” the user wrote. “Just by taking five minutes, you will have a fly-free BBQ.” 




You’ll need a plastic sandwich bag, paper clips, water, lime juice, salt and some pennies, the Instructables user explains.










The first step is to put two and a half cups of water in a bowl and add two teaspoons of salt and lime juice.

“Add two or three squirts of lime juice,” the user wrote, according to NX2. “There is no exact amount, it just keeps the pennies shiny. Stir this mixture to blend it all together. It will just look like regular water but by adding these ingredients its effects will last longer.”

After mixing the salt and lime juice with the water, pour the mixture in a sandwich bag until it’s nearly full. Before zipping the bag shut, drop the pennies inside. Then, hang the bag in the backyard using a paper clip hooked into the bag. 










Though it’s not known what exactly about the mixture in the bag keeps flies away, it has been proven to work.

Try it out and enjoy your BBQs like never before.


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## Petronius (Oct 13, 2010)

Adding shiny pennies, aluminum foil or other shiny objects to the water is just enough hocus pocus to make the trick seem plausible. I have seen bags of water and pennies hanging around outdoor restaurant and bar patios. They claimed it worked. I still saw a lot of flies.

Myth Busters tested this trick.

*Bags of water hung from the ceiling can repel flies.*
BUSTED

This myth is based in the theory that refracted light in water confused flies’ compound eyes.

The Build Team made a rig consisting of three chambers separated by trap doors. The first chamber would hold the flies, the second would hold some rotten meat, and the third would hold both rotten meat and a bag of water. They then released over 5,000 flies from the first chamber and waited to see how many flies would go into each of the other two. After the chambers were sealed off, they let all the flies die and collected the corpses to weigh for comparison. The chambers with and without the water contained 35 and 20 grams of flies, respectively, busting the myth.


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## Liver and Onions (Nov 24, 2000)

Are you opposed to killing the flies ? Trying to understand why you don't buy some fly bait and set it out in a safe way.

L & O


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## Luv2hunteup (Mar 22, 2003)

http://www.snopes.com/critters/wild/flies.asp


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## JimP (Feb 8, 2002)

LOL, just goes to show you can't trust the internet, that's why I added the question mark.
Thanks for the research everyone.


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## Petronius (Oct 13, 2010)

jimp said:


> LOL, just goes to show you can't trust the internet, that's why I added the question mark.
> Thanks for the research everyone.


Go ahead and give it a try. All it will cost you is a baggy.


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## bobberbill (Apr 5, 2011)

put the lime juice in a vodka tonic.


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## JimP (Feb 8, 2002)

Wow, a discovery!
I brought the bag inside, there haven't been any elephants in the room all weekend.


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## Fishndude (Feb 22, 2003)

Take a quart Ziploc full of pennies to your local hardware store, and buy a fly-swatter. It has worked well for 100 years. Or use them to invest in Preying Mantis eggs in spring, and put them outside to hatch. Fun for the whole family.


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## sparky18181 (Apr 17, 2012)

I like the electric fly swaters. Love to hear them fry


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## Petronius (Oct 13, 2010)

sparky18181 said:


> I like the electric fly swaters. Love to hear them fry


I bought an electric one recently and I have to tell you, it is a lot better than the manually operated ones. :lol:
Actually, I like that it has a bigger surface to hit them with and once hit, they get caught in the wires where they fry.


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## JBIV (Jan 29, 2004)

Might as well get a bugasalt.


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## 357Maximum (Nov 1, 2015)

jimp said:


> Dunno if it works or not but I'm going to try it...whats to lose except a couple minutes of your time?
> You still keep the pennies afterward.
> I know the pop bottle funnel and sugar water trick does work on wasps and yellow jackets.
> I'll report in a few days.
> ...



So that's what hope and change looks like. (sorry temptation overruled)


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## JimP (Feb 8, 2002)

357Maximum said:


> So that's what hope and change looks like. (sorry temptation overruled)


Ha-Ha...Da Devil made you do it 


PS...Coin bag doesn't work...may be ordering a couple of those $80.00 salt shooters on TV.
Those may be the only legal guns If Mrs Bill Clinton wins.


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## Petronius (Oct 13, 2010)

JBIV said:


> Might as well get a bugasalt.


I want that too!


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