Electronic fly killers in London: supply, installation and servicing

All units use ultraviolet lamps to draw in flying insects; they differ in what happens next.

• Glue board units: the insect lands on an adhesive board behind the lamps and stays there. Quiet and enclosed, so these go in kitchens, preparation rooms and wherever customers see the wall; the board is also the catch record
• Grid units: the insect hits an electrified grid and drops into a tray. Fragments can scatter and the grid crackles, so we keep them for bin stores, loading bays and warehouses, away from open food
• Screens and proofing: cleanable mesh over opening windows, plastic strips or chain curtains on doors left open for air; a unit only deals with what the screens miss

The board inside the unit is not a floor glue trap for rodents, which we do not use. Breeding sources are treated under fly control; a lamp does not stop flies breeding beneath it.

What moves the quote:

• Units: one glue board unit may cover a restaurant kitchen; a hotel with kitchen, pastry, bar and bin store needs several
• Mounting: ceiling suspension takes longer than a wall bracket
• Electrics: a new point, where no socket or fused spur is within reach, is arranged and priced separately
• Service frequency: a food production site on the six-weekly visits a BRCGS audit typically expects costs more to run than a shop on a lighter schedule
• Documentation: numbered plan, catch records and lamp logs come with every contract; BRCGS trend analysis adds time

No council charge exists to compare: Kensington and Chelsea's list (updated 9 July 2026) and Hounslow's (from 1 April 2026) cover home treatments, not flies. The survey is free, the quote fixed in writing, and there is no call-out fee.

Before we install:

• The survey first: where food is prepared, stored and served, which doors and windows open in service, where daylight falls, where power is
• Positions: by the preparation room entrance, never over the bench, hidden from the street, out of direct sunlight, not facing an external door, near a socket or fused spur
• Tell us your trading pattern: we fit before, between or after services, Monday to Saturday

After installation:

• Leave every unit on day and night; never move, open or switch one off; call us if a board or tray fills
• Doors shut or screened, bins lidded and outside, waste out at close: Bromley Council's guidance says never leave waste inside overnight or use fly sprays near food
• The first service sets the baseline catch; a rising count later means flies are getting in or breeding, and we trace the source under the six-month guarantee, subject to survey

The food business operator carries the duty, not the contractor. Annex II of retained Regulation (EC) 852/2004 requires adequate procedures to control pests in food premises, enforced under the Food Safety and Hygiene (England) Regulations 2013; it requires control you can show, not a contractor.

An EHO checks screens on open doors and windows, where each fly killer hangs, when food waste goes out and whether outside bins have lids. A unit above a food preparation surface is a finding; a Norwich City Council inspection report logged one over food handling as a contravention. Pest control sits in the physical condition element of the food hygiene rating, and a 5 needs no element above 5, so it alone can cap it.

The file: a plan with every unit numbered, each visit's report, catch counts per unit, lamp change dates. In 2016 Leeds City Council prosecuted a shop where officers found flies, a fly killer with hundreds of dead insects in its tray and no documented pest controller: a £1,500 fine, £2,500 costs and a £120 surcharge.

Most fly killer work is in the West End: basement kitchens and bars in Soho, and hotel kitchens and pastry sections in Mayfair and Westminster. Camden's market stalls and bakeries take glue board units customers can stand beside, plus a grid unit for the bin store. West along the river, the cafes, butchers and grocers of Hammersmith and Chiswick are shop-front sites, where the unit must not be seen from the pavement. In Hounslow and the TW postcodes the jobs get bigger: production units and warehouses near Heathrow, grid units over the loading bays, glue board units in the packing rooms. The same survey, plan and records apply across central, west, north-west, north and south-west London under our commercial pest control contracts.