Fly Killer? Joy Killer more like! (Raid Fly and Wasp Killer)

Member Name: i_am_joy

Product:	Raid Fly and Wasp Killer
Date:	22/05/08 (2181 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Kills flying insects quickly and easily

Disadvantages: Asthma attack inducing, foul smell

In my previous house I had a problem with wasps. I am not against wasps and do not run screaming for the hills when one buzzes past me, but there were so many wasps around last summer that I was forced to buy a tin of Raid to get rid of the blasted things. In the supermarket there was not really very much choice of fly spray so when I saw that Raid Fly and Wasp Killer I recognised the name and bought it.

It comes in an attractive coloured blue aerosol tin, but any attractiveness is quickly eradicated when your eye is drawn to the pictures of dead insects that decorate the front of the tin. Oh well, who wants pretty fly spray anyway?

As with any fly spray, Raid must be used in well ventilated areas because a poisonous gas for flies has got to be bad for the average human lung. It makes me cough like a demon. I have very severe asthma and have to be extremely careful when I use this product because if I inhale even the smallest particle of Raid it can affect my chest badly. While this is true of any fly spray, I was expecting Raid to be slightly more gentle for three reasons - it was more expensive than the other fly sprays, it is a reputable company and it claims on the bottle that it has a pleasant fresh outdoors fragrance.

I know, I know, I know. It's the fumes that make me cough and splutter, not the smell BUT I was thinking that a nicer fragrance would take the harshness out of the fumes somewhat. Absolutely not so. Raid are liars. The smell is less like a fresh outdoors smell and more like the chemical concoction this product is. There is nothing pleasant about it and while I can tell that Raid have tried to mask the horrible smell of fly spray with something nicer, all they have done in reality is throw another chemical to the mix and it smells as horrible as always, horrible with a twist I would say.

I cannot cope with this, or any other fly spray, because it can actually bring on an asthma attack which is not good news at my age. I will put up with wasps and even small flies rather than risk breathing in any of this Raid, but occasionally I will get a huge blue bottle in my house and these really turn my stomach so I have to get rid of it. If I am feeling particularly fleet of foot that day I will hazard a quick burst onto the offending fly and then race out of the room and close the door, but it is not often I feel quick enough to move before being covered in falling fly spray droplets.

It does the job though and all kinds of flying insects die within seconds of being zapped with Raid. Wasps, bluebottles, flies and those odd mosquito looking insects we get in the summer nowadays have all been successfully eradicated using this fly spray. Cheaper fly sprays will kill small flies but usually just make the larger ones sluggish and, in the case of wasps, angry which does not really help because as soon as the fly spray has disappeared from the air they just start buzzing around again being irritating. I was very angry when my granddaughter used Raid on a spider recently because the spider died with his legs bunched up to his body and I could tell the poor thing had suffered, I tried to tell her that spiders should not be killed because they do so much good but she is petrified of them and wanted to get rid of it I think.

Do you remember that infestation of crane fly a couple of summers ago? Now I am not frightened of spiders and think it's lovely watching a daddy-longlegs flying around the garden in the sun, but there were thousands of them that year and the sheer volume of them was making me feel squeamish. One evening I had a barbeque and left my back door and lounge windows open for most of the evening, when I finally went inside there were at least 30 or 40 crane flies in my lovely comfortable lounge - I am not exaggerating here at all, there honestly were that many there. I was going back to my daughters to spend the night so my son in law got my stuff and me into the car, came back in and sprayed the whole room with Raid then closed the door and off we went. The next day we got back and there was no evidence of the long spray of fly spray (I mean there were no coughing fits) but crane fly bodies littered my carpet and not a single one had survived. Not good from an environmental point of view, but who wants to share their sofa with daddy-longlegs?

Raid Fly and Wasp Killer costs about £1.29 and is available everywhere.

Summary: Die of an asthma attack or put up with a fly?