EdF

This was an email circulated to me from N.America. Perhaps worth a try..??[8-|] Someone emailed me this information.  Don’t know if it works, but might be worth trying if you have a problem with flies. We went with some out of town friends to Sweety Pies on Sunday for breakfast, and we sat in the enclosed patio section beside the house. We happened to notice a couple of zip lock baggies (polythene bags with the sliding sealing 'zip') pinned to a post and a wall. The bags were half filled with water, each contained 4 pennies, and they were zipped shut. Naturally we were curious! Ms Sweety told us that these baggies kept the flies away! So naturally we were even more curious! We actually watched some flies come in the open window, stand around on the window sill, and then fly out again. And there were no flies in the eating area! This morning I checked this out on Google. Below are comments on this fly control idea. I’m now a believer! More comments not included here were about pet dogs and fly problems. Zip-lock water bags Sue says: Many people swear that a zip-lock bag filled half-way with water and attached over entry-ways will repel flies. No one yet knows how or why it works, but there is speculation that it has something to do with the way the moving water refracts light. If you have tried this please use the comments form at the bottom of the page to share your results with the rest of us. ann Says: October 5th, 2008 at 5:51 pm I did tried the ziplock bag and pennies this weekend. I have a horse trailer with full LQ (living quarters?). The flys were very bad this weekend while I was camping. I put the baggie with pennies above the door of the LQ. NOT ONE FLY came in the trailer. The horse trailer part had many. Not sure why it works but it does!!!!!!! Danielle Martin Says: September 20th, 2008 at 8:43 pm Fill a ziplock bag with water and 5 or 6 pennies and hang it in the problem area. In my case it was a particular window in my home. It had a slight but significant passage way for insects.Every since I have done that, it has kept flies and wasps away. Some say, that wasps and flies mistake the bag for some sort of other insect nest and are threatened by this. maggie Says: June 7th, 2009 at 11:40 am I swear by the plastic bag of water trick I have them on side porch ( our house entry) and all around the basement door. We saw these in Northeast Mo at an Amish grocery store & have used them since. They say it works because a fly sees a reflection & won’t come around. Just DJ Says: May 16th, 2009 at 7:25 pm Regarding the science behind zip log bags of water? My research found that each of the millions of molecules of water presents its own prism effect and given that flies have a lot of eyes, to them it’s like a zillion disco balls reflecting light, colors and movement in a dizzying manner. When you figure that flies are basically prey for many other bugs, animals, birds, etc., they simply won’t take the risk of being around that much perceived action. I moved to a rural area and thought these “hillbillies” were just yanking my city boy chain but I tried it, worked immediately! We went from hundreds of flies to seeing the occasional one, but he don’t hang around long.

Framboise, have you been to the one at Bagnoles-de-L'Orne? That will do nicely as it's not far from where are staying. Thanks! Sunday Driver, is that 3 months concurrently or spread over a year, do you know? Also, how would anyone in officialdom know how long one had been in France?

Thanks for all replies. That's VERY interesting, Sunday Driver, as I pay quite a lot in tax every month.... Sorry I haven't replied sooner, but the 'email me replies to this post' didn't work.. Our sticking point right now is that my wife has two horses and we feel it would be a hassle to move us and them.., considering what they need..

Hope two questions are okay.. My wife and I both benefit greatly from a local hydro-therapy pool and as we are planning a holiday in northern France soon (late October) we wondered if there are any in reach of Normandy. We are aware of some in the Pyrenees and the Alps, but we don't want to travel that far. Are they only found in the mountains? I've done a web search but no luck. I don't mean the expensive 'get a mud facial and pampering' kind of spa, but a basic, thermal spa type swimming pool. We have been to to one at Leukerbad, in the Swiss Rhone Valley, which was great. Secondly, my wife and I have been toying with the idea of buying a holiday home in France for years, which we would probably live in semi-permanently in the future. Although I'm retired on an ill-health company pension and have incapacity benefit in the UK, I'm not yet 60. I believe the changes to the French rules mean I would not be covered by the French NHS until I was 65. I expect private health insurance would be very high, considering my health, if we were living in France permanently, but I'm not too sure how we would go about it if we were living in France for several months a year. Would we just get a tourist type of annual policy?   Any replies welcome..

After several years trawling through French estate agents web sites, I am still amazed at the often appalling photos shown. I've seen a photo of a sofa against a blank wall with no other photos available, often there are photos of everthing in the house, but no photo of the outside. Apartments are often shown looking from inside towards a balcony door, but the supposed view is just a brightly lit square. No wonder some stay on the market forever.. Perhaps there should be a competition for the worst ever photo?

I suppose this is like asking 'how long is a piece of string?' Situation is that we live in the north of Scotland and after many trips to France, and having finally decided that we cannot take the awful weather here any longer (two days ago it was 6C at 11am, and raining), we want to move to France, either permanently or 'part-time'. We will be keeping a small house here, 'just in case' which will be rented if all goes well. We have two horses, a middle aged native breed cross and a Dutch warmblood sports horse (a wimp who had sweet itch last year - a highly irritating reaction to midge bites). We're concerned for the horses about possible summer heat problems and winter cold, both can be more severe than here, and biting insects. We've noticed that in mountainous areas (in Switzerland), summer insects weren't a problem at all, we wondered if this holds true in higher altitudes in France such as the Auvergne. We are very well settled here as far as the horses are concerned, with a great horse specialist vet and a top-class farrier and we grow our own haylage, but WE are unhappy! It's a bit daunting to leave all that behind and to find a suitable location, a house with decent land, good hacking, etc., etc. A lady we know in Poitou-Charente told us last year, 'for God's sake don't bring your horses here!!' The summer heat and insects were driving her nags crazy. We can't take scorching heat, for that matter!  We don't need to earn a living (I'm retired) and can move anywhere. I suppose it would be handy being able to get flights to Scotland, which cuts the choice down a bit. We would like to live in an 'interesting' area, that is, with some up & down bits, we wouldn't be happy on a vast plain! Auvergne, maybe Burgundy, Haute Savoie & Jura come to mind. We are about to come over again for a week or so, and any suggestions would be helpful. Thanks!

My wife and I would like to hear from horse owners in France. We live in the north of Scotland and we have two horses, a 21yo Cleveland Bay cross and a 13yo Dutch Warmblood. We have a wonderful farrier and a great horse specialist vet here and of course the weather is seldom hot and winters of late have been very mild. As we have no ties and I'm retired we have been considering buying a house in France. It would be more convenient to move full-time than to buy a holiday home, simply because of the horses. If we go on holiday we have to find a horse-sitter, consequenly our holidays are always short as my wife doesn't like to leave them for very long. It's too far to travel from here to France with the horses for longer stays and I don't want the hassle of trying to maintain two properties equipped for horses in different countries, running one is enough work! We would like to hear from horse owners of their experiences when moving horses to France as we have had only one negative comment so far. My wife was in touch with an English lady with horses in Poitou-Charente who said, "don't bring them here!!",as her vets attitude was 'shoot it and buy another' when faced with a problem, farriers were virtually non-existant and she added that the heat and insects in summer made her horses' lives a misery. Not encouraging words. We favour the Burgundy/Auvergne/Jura regions as we also like to visit Switzerland for skiing and we wondered if the higher altitude of the Jura or Auvergne may be more suitable for our 'lads'. The Dutch Warmblood especially was troubled by midges here last summer and reacted to their bites, needing veterinary treatment, so we are concerned about taking him somewhere with an even worse insect problem. He was wearing full insect protection most of the summer.. My wife enters and also runs club level dressage events but we understand she may have to forego that activity. Any advice most welcome, also non-horsey views on your area.