Fly infestation?

[ihugtrees]

DH and I went away on vacation. We took out the trash before we left. When we came back, our house was FULL of flies. Humongous flies (I thought they were horse flies at first!), tiny flies, and in between flies! We killed them one by one ( ) but every few days, we see several more buzzing around. I feel like they are growing somewhere! We take our trash out all the time, although we DO have cats...could they live in cat litter?! We don't leave windows or doors open, either.

Where else could they be coming from? How can we get rid of them WITHOUT calling an exterminator?

[rainyday]

We've been dealing with this too. For us, they were coming out from some plants we'd brought in to protect from the cold. We've gradually been catching them over the last few weeks, and now they're pretty much gone. If they're not breeding in your house, they will disappear over a few weeks if you keep getting rid of them.

But, I also heard on the radio recently that the most common reason for fly infestations is a dead rodent somewhere - in the walls, behind the washer, in a basement drain, etc. So if you have any foul odors along with the flies, that could be the problem.

[Abarat]

We get them in the winter too because they hang out on the south side of our house, which is warm, then come in the door whenever it's open.

I've tried a few homemade 'traps' but they didn't work. We either go hunting with the swatter or use these great clear rectangular plastic pieces of 'fly paper' that you can stick to the window. That catches everything and they work great for us.....they're right next to the rolls of fly paper in the stores, you may need to shop around a little to find them though but they're well worth it, easy to use and you don't have a roll of fly paper hanging from your ceiling, just an 'invisible' trap on your window.