What to Know
- A Galloway Township, New Jersey, lawyer says his new invention can successfully repel greenhead flies.
- Others who have tried the product say it works and some businesses are even selling it.
- The inventor says he's in the process of getting a patent for it.
Greenhead flies, also known as Tabanus nigrovittatus, can make a day at the Jersey Shore miserable with the biting females being a major pest to humans and animals.
“They’re awful,” Evan Klein of Glen Rock, New Jersey, said. “We actually left the beach a little early to get away from that.”
But Scott Macom, a lawyer from Galloway Township, New Jersey, says he has the solution. It’s the Greenhead Greenaid, Macom’s invention which he claims repels the big bloodthirsty bugs within three feet of where it’s placed in the sun.
“It chases away greenheads by the refraction of light that comes from the tube and the sun,” Macom said.
Macom told NBC10 it took him about two years to perfect the combination of copper tape, water, two non-toxic compounds he won’t reveal, and gold dust to create the product.
“When I first saw it I was like, ‘Is this going to work?’ And actually it does. It really does work,” Phil Kraus of the Smithville Community Association said.
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Other members of the Smithville Community Association, including Dawn Rado, also insist the invention works.
“They have not disturbed me or bothered me since he put it down,” Rado said.
Chestnut Neck Boat Yard, a bait and tackle store in Port Republic, New Jersey, is among the businesses selling the Greenhead Greenaid for $20 each.
“We’ve sold quite a few of them,” Mitch Brown of Chestnut Neck Boat Yard said. “If you can keep that thing in the bright sunlight and close to your body, they definitely do deflect away from it.”
Macom said he’s in the process of getting a patent for his product and is also working on other versions, including ones that are wearable.
“The girls want bracelets,” Macom said. “I’ve had a lot of requests for anklets.”
For more information on the Greenhead Greenaid, follow its Instagram account.
