Flies in the House

I am being driven demented by flies in our house - again.  I don't know what they are but I know what they're not - they're not fruit flies, blow flies, cluster flies nor blue bottles.  They are about the size of cluster flies, fly quietly until they're near you then you hear their buzz, they crawl over every work surface, all over food even when you're serving it such that someone else has to stand next to you wafting the air to keep them away, and they particularly like the heat of the wood burning cooker.

I have tried the plastic bottle cut in half, top inverted, with bait of cheese, meat, honey, sugar but they're not up for it.

I have tried making mint tea and dousing the surfaces with it.  I have tried wiping mint leaves directly on the worksurfaces, keyboard etc.  They're not bothered.

I have tried vinegar, water and eucalyptus oil in a spray and sprayed it around all the doors. They're still in here in their masses.

I have tried keeping all the doors and windows shut but that's hard here as the children forget.  Plus it wasn't why we wanted to move here - it was precisely because the indoors could be integrated with the outdoors.

I have tried have air movement through the house but unless it's like a strong breeze blowing all the papers about etc and slamming loose doors then it makes no difference.

This morning there were 25 flies clustered on the electric stove next to the woodburner (the woodburner had residual heat).  I seem to be cleaning all day as they make me feel as though we must be dirty and leaving 'food' grains for them.  We have folk staying with us and goodness knows what they think of the hygiene here as whenever you are in the house you have to walk around swatting at the air as you're attacked.

HEEEEEEELLLLLLLPPPPP

heninfrance wrote:
This morning there were 25 flies clustered on the electric stove next to the woodburner (the woodburner had residual heat).  I seem to be cleaning all day as they make me feel as though we must be dirty and leaving 'food' grains for them.  We have folk staying with us and goodness knows what they think of the hygiene here as whenever you are in the house you have to walk around swatting at the air as you're attacked.

Do you have a hose/wand on your vacuum?

When I get over run with fruit flies - I wait until they 'cluster' and swoosh into the vacuum I suck them!  Think suck not blow - that's my advise.

It's a numbers game, suck faster than they can reproduce and in just minutes you will have some relief. 

Good luck ♥

any idea what they are eating?

The vacuum one won't work with them as they fly off as soon as they see movement.

What are they eating?  Well, I *thought* my worksurfaces were quite clean so that there was nothing to eat but they crawl all over them.  They seem to like their own dead as they crawl all over them if left.  Any type of food that isn't immediately covered has at least two crawling on it.

They seem to like heat - today they are crawling all over the ant-infested dishwasher as it has just finished its cycle.

The sound like the same type of flies that infest our place in Portugal if we leave the doors open.  Have you tried those fly curtain things made out of long strings of beads which you can hang up in doorways?  They aren't 100% effective, but they do cut down the numbers.  They seem to be after somewhere sheltered they can hang out where it's warmish at night and coolish during the day.  Also sticky fly papers are good at getting rid of surplus flies.  They are gross things, but if you hang one up near where they congregate (by the diswasher?) they do cream off the surplus flies.  We often have flies congregating on the fridge and on the old man's television as they do seem to like the warmth.

It's too bad you can't pop down to the store and buy some spiders.

Yes you're right.  We can buy ladybird (ladybug? in the States) larvae etc but not spiders yet.  We do treat them with the utmost respect here and keep all their webs (much to my father's disgust when he visits, and his wife no longer comes cos she thinks it's dirty to keep spider's webs)

Sucking flies with a vacuum is a learned skill.

I know flies will move when you come after them with anything, but sucking them with a vacuum hose is much easier to do than swatting with a flyswatter or snapping with a towel.  You only have to get within inches of the fly for a split second to suck it into the suck-zone of a vacuum hose nozzle.

So what do you have to loose - try waving your vacuum hose very quickly around the flies as they 'take off' and you will suck some up each time, even while they are fling to avoid you.  You will get better and better at this, trust me.

And/or set up a container with a vacuum hose size opening at the side - maybe cut a round hole in a plastic shoe size box.  Put sticky food inside, some sweet juice in a puddle on the floor of the box, snap the lid on and wait.  Check on your trap now and then and when several flies have entered to feed turn on your vacuum and place the nozzle through the opening - move the box and as they fly they will come into the suck-zone of your hose and poof, gone!

If you worry about them escaping your vacuum - suck some DE, vinegar or essential oil mist into your vacuum while it's running to deal with flies in your vacuum debris.

This may not be a solution you want to try or use for your own reasons, I understand. 
However, it does work on everything from fruit flies to horse flies.

Some species of spiders are more compatible with people than others.  It seems to me that if you have a bunch of flies, you basically have a lot of spider food.  And which species of spider that shows up could be a species you really don't want. 

So, for the long run, I would say that if you see any daddy long legs spiders in your house, to let them be. 

yeah we have always had a standing order, DO NOT KILL THE JUMPING SPIDERS

you know they never get too many in numbers, don't know why..we usually have one or two in each room and they hang out in the windows or on the ceiling..but we don't have fly problems.

now when it comes to bigger spiders like wolf spiders..i'm not too fond of them..but the jumpers are always welcome in our house

i think you need to ID the fly first. and find out where they are breeding and multiplying. then figure out a way to get rid of them.

We're lucky here that we don't have any 'nasty' spiders.  Only nice ones 

Hmmm, how to ID a fly.  They were awful today - still air, warm, muggy.  Here's hoping for rain and a breeze.

The vacuum technique works. Like Jamie said, wait until they've clustered or settled somewhere and if your vacuum has any power at all it'll suck them in from 3 or 4 inches away.
If you have fibreglass insulation in the walls of your house, the flies may be laying eggs in there. A long term solution to this problem could be expensive/poisonous/challenging... Living in France, I'm not sure you would have fibreglass though... Isn't wood fibre insulation more common in Europe?

In our family log home we get a lot of flies spending the winter in the creatives, then as it warms up we are accosted by clumsy half frozen flies, we found that the vacuum worked very well to clean them up.

do you have house plants,rotten fruits if not check you sewer sound like a clogged or faulty P trap

Or I have also seen them spawn inside a cabinet with a leaking pipe, water forms  a puddle on a wood floor & it starts to rot, some kinds of flies will lay eggs in this.

What about a "venus flytrap"?  I believe they chow flies

I actually have the same problem in summer.  Even moreso with the horses.  They irritate the horses and keep perched on their faces, stacks of them. 
And bite their tummies - not fun.

If anyone has got a recipe for an outdoors super zapper fly-deterrent, I'm all ears!!

Suzie

For outside, flies because of animals I would recommend the parasitic wasp which control flies breeding on poo.

See Google:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=5IH&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&channel=s&q=parasitic+wasp+used+for+flies&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=

An oddball method I have heard time and again is to fill a ziploc bag with a few pennies and water and hang it in the entrance doorways.  It is suppose to mimic a predators eye ()   

I have a horse farm and I am going to try this.

Also heard the pennies story - we don't have pennies here but I hope cents will work too?  Will try that. 

I like the idea of the wasps.  But how to get them in South Africa?

im not sure how well it works but i have heard and seen people take a zipplock back fill it with water and hang it over the door. it is suppost to keep the flies out not sure how well it works but my narbor says it works great.

the cheap guy

Try the old - fashioned fly traps you can get just about anywhere.  Pop the top off the little tubular can, the top has a little loop you can attach to a cuphook in the ceiling, then you gently pull down the tube from which a sticky tape uncoils as you pull it downwards. They may not be ornamental, but they are sticky as hell and the flies seem to love landing on them.  In our house they have tamed swarms of flies from the two nearby dairies, and they work well on fruit flies too.