Today’s T3 includes tips for getting rid of houseflies, classical music streaming, and a great Father’s Day deal from TP-Link.
1. Housefly Slayer
I like to let my cat go out to my fenced backyard on her own but I didn’t want to cut a hole in the door to install a cat door. Instead, I got a hanging screen that lets me keep the main door open so she can go in and out at will while still keeping most bugs out. But “most” is not “all” and a couple of weeks ago I found myself with a serious housefly problem.
Last year I found a great product to deal with this but I couldn’t remember where I put it at the end of the season. Rather than try to hunt it down, I just decided to buy a new one because I knew my problem would be gone within a day or two (and there was no guarantee I’d find my old one in that time!)
Victor M380 Fly Magnet Reusable Trap with Bait
The Victor Fly Magnet is a plastic jar with a lid that has four holes in it. It comes with a powder that works as bait for the flies. You just fill up the jar with water and add the bait and, boy, does it attract flies!
TIP: I only use a portion of the bait with each fill and it doesn’t seem to reduce its efficiency.
The reason it works is obvious; it smells like a barn! So you probably don’t want to set it up too close to your house, although I don’t find the smell that bad and kept it in my kitchen for a day to get the flies that were already inside. Then I put it out in my garden away from an area where people hang out and in one week, this is the result. (Warning: This is gross.)
The white lid supposedly helps attracting flies as well. Note that the powder is NOT a poison. The flies die from drowning in the water. When it’s full, I just dig a hole in a back part of my garden and dump them in there to decompose. You can also just throw them out. Last year, I tried putting them near my bird feeders thinking they might be a delicious treat for them, but the birds weren’t interested.
You then just repeat the process and this way your home remains virtually fly-free all summer long. The ONLY bad thing I can say about this product is that it doesn’t catch mosquitoes! 🙁
The trap comes in quart and gallon sizes and there are 2-, 3-, and 4-pack options available. You can also buy 3-packs of bait for refills.
Find more pest-control tips in this T4L post. >>
2. New Streaming Service for Classical Music
I’m completely classical music illiterate, so I can’t say I ever noticed that the big-name streaming services like Spotify and YouTube Red don’t have a lot of offerings for this audience. But apparently that is the case, so Primephonic has come along to fill in the classical gap.
According to the Primephonic website, the service offers more than 100,000 tracks in CD quality. It costs $14.99/month, is ad-free, and has a 30-day free trial that doesn’t require you to enter your credit card information. There’s also no minimum term; you can cancel anytime.
Read this interview with Primephonic’s founder. >> (Billboard, 06/14/17)
Learn more and sign up for the free trial on the Primephonic website. >>
3. Father’s Day Deal on Smart Plugs from TP-Link
For a limited (unknown) time, TP-Link has a deal where you purchase three HS100 smart plugs ($29.99 each), and they’ll include a free AC1200 KASA Wi-Fi Extender ($79.99 value). To get the deal, you need to add three of the plugs to your cart and then enter coupon code JUNE2017.
I have one of these plugs that I use with my living room lamp. The Kasa app that controls it was simple to set up and you can connect it to an Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant device to control it with your voice.
I don’t have the specific Wi-Fi extender they’re offering, which you use if you have places in your home where your wireless signal is weak, but I’ve used other ones as I’ve written about in this post:
Extend Your Wi-Fi Signal or a Stronger Internet Connection
This one looks like it has some cool additional features, like using the same Kasa app to find the best location to plug in the extender.
Check out the TP-Link deal now. >>
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