FLIES! Please HELP!

[StoriesInTheSoil]

We were out all evening and came home to find that our house was suddenly full of flies! There have been one or two each day for the past few days which was irritating but not unbearable and we thought nothing of it but this is full-blown insanity. I am so upset! What should we do? I've never had anything like this happen before! Where the heck did they all come from?!?!?!

Any help is welcome.

[yarngoddess]

That's really strange.....

Do you have horses, goats, or other animals? If you do then get some Spalding Labs Fly Predators- they are bugs that eat the larva stage fly's.

Some flies are attracted to fruit- especially fruit that's starting to go bad. I would check everything and try to clean all your kitchen areas, trash cans (outdoors ones too).

There are fly traps you can get- but they often are very stinky....think CHUM in a bag yuck. But they do work. I'm not sure why you've got flies...but I can totally sympathise with ya! Hang in there!!!

[Gnatty]

ugh! I hate flies and they've just exploded here in the past few days. I hung some sticky fly strips, which should help a little bit. Other than that I just need to get some more window screens...

[rere]

We had that happen last year.A friend told me that when it happened to her it was because they were reproducing in her garbage can.So,I took out the garbage and no new flies.We killed off the swarm and that was it.

[anywaybecause]

This happened to us once . . . it turned out we had a dead mouse in the basement. Once we cleaned up the mouse, there were no more flies.

[quietserena]

this happened to us too. you gotta find the source - often trash or a dead animal. sometimes the source is long gone but the fly pupae are left and then you just gotta wait until they all hatch or whatever they do. for us, the trash was next to a wall that we didn't realize wasn't sealing underneath so all the maggots crawled under the wall and turned into pupa and so even though everything looked clean, i had flies everywhere basically, coming out of the wall. *shudder*

my best tip for dealing is this: put your vacuum by the biggest window in the house where they come to then, vacuum as they collect. the trip through the vacuum killed them for me, though it might not be the same for you.

good luck! at least they don't bite!

[kirstenb]

Originally Posted by quietserena

my best tip for dealing is this: put your vacuum by the biggest window in the house where they come to then, vacuum as they collect. the trip through the vacuum killed them for me, though it might not be the same for you.

I was coming here to say the same thing. The vacuum worked great when we had that problem a few years ago. It took a day or two but it was much easier than chasing them around with a fly swatter. I made sure to empty it outside in case there were any left alive.

[newbymom05]

This used to happen to us when we lived in a big older house. If they're big black flies, it's prolly a dead animal like a rat or mouse in your walls or attic. Sorry you're dealing w/ it (if that's what it is)--they're so gross! Now we only get those mean little poop flies, I can't decide which are grosser!

If you had a recurring fly problem from the outside, I've heard that hanging a plastic bag filled w/ water and a penny by the door/window works. Supposedly the flies think the penny is a spider and stay away.