Things I think of.

I was looking out of my front door when I noticed a little bit of fly muck. Immediately it bought back to me times of my youth.
We had no electric but we did have gas. In the country lighting was by oil lamp. Incidentally, my best pal had oil lamp lighting.
Anyway during the summer, our home, as was every home, was infested with flies. I have always detested them. As there was no fly spray, the main thing to keep them down was to swat them with a bit of newspaper.
After the war the first thing that came about to kill flies was what was called Flypaper. It was in a tube. The nearest thing I can say to this would be an old film for a camera. You pulled the end of the tube and out came a piece of sticky paper about 18" long. This was not handled as it was very sticky. It was pinned up to the ceiling and after a couple of days had to be taken down because it would be full of dead flies.
By the way, I do everything in my power to stop flies from entering my home. When the odd fly does manage to find it's way into my house, I immediately go after the intruder and I am not satisfied until it is dispatched.
To stop flies from entering, my friend has made a fly screen and fitted it to my outside door in my sitting room. I can then have my door open so as to allow fresh air in without any flies.
Back to when I was young. Not having electricity, mind you there were very few fridges about anyway, all houses had a pantry, also there was what was known as a clod slab. Some were made of marble so it was really cold in relation to other shelves. Some had what you would call meat safes. This was a small safe with a gauze front therefore not allowing a fly to enter. Also in the pantry, there was a window. This was also covered by gauze, or some material like that.
Eggs were put on the cold slab as it was called. Milk in the summer was a problem. My Mother would get an enamel bucket of cold water and stick the milk in that to try to stop it from going sour. More often than not this would fail so often my Mother would ask one of us to finish the milk off as the milkman always called early every morning. Milk would always be on our doorstep before we go up. More soon.