This is a guide to catching those annoying, pesky house flies with just your bare hand, enabling you to kill it or release it away from where it was bothering you. Just don’t forget to wash your hands after.

First, I will explain a little about flies and their reaction when startled. As you know, they fly away if you try and hit them. Their first reaction is to fly up and backwards away from whatever danger they sensed. With this in hand, let me explain how to catch the annoying flies.

1. Wait for the fly to land. (It would be too hard to catch it out of the air).
2. Put your hand 4-6 inches above the fly very carefully without startling it.
3. Swipe your hand, at the same 4-6 inch level that you were holding it at, slightly behind the fly, in an attempt to catch it. The fly will get scared and fly up and backwards into your hand and you will have caught the fly.

What to do after you caught the fly?

Well, you probably want to either let it go or kill the fly. The best way to do either of these is to first shake the hand which is holding the fly, as if you were shaking a can of pop to make it explode. This doesn’t harm the fly, but it gives it a good headache to confuse it and slow it down. Then you can either let it go outside or whip it to the ground and squash it with whatever you like.