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Old Posted: 24-01-2010 , 08:05 PM #1
filo
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Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Bray
Posts: 150
Default Flies - this time of year????

Hi again,

Hope your imagination is working...

I live in an apartment over a shop. In my son's room I have 2 bay windows that look over a bacolony and lower down a garden so I’d be three storeys high. In my room I look down on to the pavement.

A couple of months ago at about half ten at night I opened my bedroom window and to my horror bluebottles flew in. They were living in between the frames of the window and the window you open. Armed with the fly spray I attacked. I counted 32 dead bluebottles. I checked all the windows and found some living in the frame in my son's window. I now open the windows every day to make sure they are not living there.

Since then I’ve had a few flies - not bluebottles in the bathroom. Over the bath there is a very high window that doesn’t open. Maybe once a week I would see a fly and spray the bathroom with the spray. The next day on average I would find two or three dead flies.


Then I got a leak in my sons room. The builder had to cut a piece out of the ceiling to see where its coming from. The hole was left uncovered. A while later I noticed 2 flies in the room so I attacked again and left the room door closed. When I went back in that night I found 27 dead flies and all I could think was they were coming in the hole so I covered the hole but cant be sure as they could be coming in the vent?. There is a little flat roof where the hole is.

So have I an infestation???

I’ve had a look around - no rotten food, the shops bins are nowhere near the windows.

I don’t want to keep using the spray as its only a temp solution so any ideas?

Karen
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Old Posted: 24-01-2010 , 10:19 PM #2
Mickey
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Location: Wicklow
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Default

Did something small/medium (rodent-like) perhaps crawl in somewhere and die? Wondering because dead things get maggots and these turn into flies - but I may be remembering my Science classes from school all wrong - and that wouldn't be a first....
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Old Posted: 25-01-2010 , 10:50 AM #3
Mandolin
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Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: Newcastle, Co.Wicklow
Posts: 124
Default Flies & bluebottles

Hi Filo, I have exactly the same problem and spent ages googling a solution last week. I suspect the wooden window frames are contributing - are yours unpainted? It seems to be worse around my unpainted veluxes than the painted windows downstairs. I read that they might be coming to life in warm houses when it's cold outside but they lurk in places like window frames, so I'm going to try citronella oil on those window frames & see if that works. It happened in our last house in an unused bathroom that had unpainted timber frame windows too. I'm determined to get to the bottom of it this time, they're driving me mad!
I'll let you know how the oil works (if I can find any)
Madeleine
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Old Posted: 25-01-2010 , 11:40 AM #4
filo
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Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Bray
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Default Flies - this time of year????

Thanks for the replys...

Dont know about the dead rodents as i havent smelled anything but thats not saying they arent in the walls - hopefully not!!!

Unsure about the windows - they are a grey timber but all the windows are the same and i dont seem to have a problem by the sitting room and door where i would expect a problem as the bin is there.

Hopefully the council will send someone down to have a look.

Any other ideas would be gratefull.

Would they fit through the tiny holes in the vent?

Karen
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Old Posted: 25-01-2010 , 12:06 PM #5
premiercounty
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Default Yuck

Oh god, I remember something similar happened years ago. blue bottles, nothing more disgusting. Citronella is very good, like another answerer said, but you could always try the age old way, if your up to it! Go to a friends house, catch a few spiders and let them loose in whichever rooms. Personally, I rather live with spiders than flies. Try lighting citronella candles when your home, but blue bottles have an extreme reproduction rate, and they live off anything.
Or, if you could put up, or if you like them, get a cat. "I may have spider webs in my house....but I'll give you 50 quid if you can find the spider"....as I say to my friends. She eats everything. Daddy long legs, flies, spiders, if it moves, its dinner to her.
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Old Posted: 25-01-2010 , 12:16 PM #6
Mandolin
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Location: Newcastle, Co.Wicklow
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Default Flies in vent

I've wondered about the vents too Filo but I have vents in every room so why not flies in every room - it's a mystery! Premiercounty's spider solution is a good one but, judging by the cobwebs all over my house I've plenty of those lads!
I've had enough! I'm taking the CSI approach now, I'll get the boys in the lab to run a few tests (that'll be me... in the bathroom... with a bottle of oil....).
M.
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Old Posted: 04-02-2010 , 07:25 PM #7
filo
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Default Flies

Pest control have been up!!!

I have cluster flies!!!

The cluster flies are the genus Pollenia in the blowfly family Calliphoridae. Unlike more familiar blowflies such as the bluebottle genus Phormia, they do not present a health hazard because they do not lay eggs in human food. They are strictly parasitic on earthworms; the females lay their eggs near earthworm burrows, and the larvae then infest the worms. However, the flies are a nuisance because when the adults emerge in the late summer or autumn they enter houses to hibernate, often in large numbers; they are difficult to eradicate because they favour inaccessible spaces such as roof and wall cavities. They are often seen on windows of little-used rooms. They are also sometimes known as attic flies.

The typical cluster fly Pollenia rudis is about 7 mm long and can be recognised by distinct lines or stripes behind the head, short golden-coloured hairs on the thorax, and irregular light and dark gray areas on the abdomen. Cluster flies are typically slow moving.

They also said the cluster flies go for the hottest wall of the house where the sun shines.
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Old Posted: 04-02-2010 , 10:42 PM #8
Mandolin
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Default Flies

Filo, thanks a million for that update. I thought the flies must've been reading over my shoulder as I hadn't seen one since I last posted. That's great to know, so presumably we just leave them alone if they're no harm. (I never did find that oil anyway!) Thanks again.
M.
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