Advice about flies please!

Do you have flyscreens there? Here you just can’t leave the doors or windows open without the fine mesh screens if you have a garden. They love the warmer weather. I just use one of the natural based low irritant sprays if they get inside. Usually called ‘green’ sprays here.

The only thing that works is a sticky fly-catcher that you hang up. Everything sticks to it. Ugly ? yes, but it's either those for a spell or the flies.
Sprays are alright if you can spray them directly once they've landed but it's not good to breathe-in the spray particles left in the air.

No we don't have in built screen doors here. My sister has them in Australia. You can buy them to hang outside but that would only stop them getting in downstairs and not in the bathroom.
I like to keep windows open when I'm cleaning as I'm asthmatic, which is also why I don't like sprays.

If they are fruit flies, the tiny ones, then I deal with them by putting a little amount of apple vinegar in a ramekin and adding a drop of fairy liquid. That deals with them.

If you have a plague of house flies I imagine the pest controller would know how to deal with them, discover where they are breeding etc.

Last autumn we had an absolute plague of flies in the loft, literally thousands, it was vile, we got some smoke bombs from an agricultural supply shop, and it seemed to do the trick.

Don’t have a huge problem here in Wales - just a few in the conservatory in summer and I have a trusty swatter to get rid of the blighters!

In Spain I have a beaded curtain over the front door from May to October which is vital as it means they don’t venture in.

All windows are pretty much left open day and night during that time and I’ve stuck some fine net fly screens from Lidl on the outside which means rooms are ventilated with no problem.

Are you rural?

If so do you have any chicken farms within a couple of miles?

We had a real plague last year and on reporting it to the council they investigated and found a chicken farmer was not doing the necessary with cleaning out his hens. Within a week it was resolved.

In France we have had a problem with cluster flies. They appear in the autumn in their thousands .

At first I thought the flies were laying eggs in the wondow frame but it seems they come into the house via the loft, eaves, open windows etc.

This link is a commercial one, but it describes cluster fly infestations very well and has a list of solutions. This probably what you had Sara1954www.pestdefence.co.uk/news/what-are-cluster-flies-and-how-do-you-get-rid-of-a-cluster-fly-infestation/

We used to find hundreds of dead dying and flying flies clustered all around the windows, when we arrived after being in England for 5 or 6 weeks. I used a hoover and sometines a fly killer to get rid of them. They leave tiny little drops of red excrement everywhere, so everything has to be washed down with disinfectaant afterwards.

I made screens for the windows that I open. It was the only way to stop the flies coming in. I started with a kit similar to this:
www.ebay.co.uk/itm/WINDOW-SCREEN-NET-MESH-FLY-INSECT-WHITE-BLACK-BUG-MOSQUITO-MOTH-DOOR-NETTING-NEW/133438565431?_trkparms=ispr%3D1&hash=item1f118eec37:g:yAYAAOSwQGpe5lmj&amdata=enc%3AAQAFAAACcBaobrjLl8XobRIiIML1V4Imu%252Fn%252BzU5L90Z278x5ickkBUIiHwYv5YgVss0WaiENz7ji40DKfJQuizgeyUahuSe7uiaXZAmMqWpT0ckKynQfh2oW0%252FHFvJVFlc2RzbDEfm58fTRiSIDAYzVM%252BZ6mCoqbhO%252BmZk1EfPAHFEwpvOXqISAJ1LKyRUneXS14mJ4ySTc1x6bqdAtjKyA3eZBXie%252F9bsb0urSJGbj4CikMZjM9WACB4wJr5juPWrPbhdpRc1sGrR6tbHW6WTxX6YyVxIJqdntt5ydgWrywjTWQV9z97GRAIPoftXp4L4%252FsWtbMHRWde0E6a%252BLSAGgpX49WuILV62tt%252BNIgT%252B0asktFSP1mfPDK7S3z70vbLZIJUETe85piQCxUMFPGhp70GEhO5cExBwuURZSOoWfnMg0k%252FMrTh0aH8HZEs3Bs2tdjmyRvUgunVzHyhuLy4P2PLyltN4igVhm5PknPbWs0fdSEhQjOWVrChTXJeV35rmzjck8SO%252B5MS9128bTY7OEBFjSGivuLy8Mp8%252B0uxRwJT3jWUJbj9OzC7H%252BGUB7wxD%252BSaGiqnZafwUFKXmIsNqJv2qEhRYBSPWyH%252FQv6sF0lTQpACRNbBYr1ljmWK2NZddPTw4UJIl7Q%252Ffp5WOR%252FKYfKZfGH%252FgBna8C8Jz90ib3fFhDOHqkZ8Vm4JLBpSzPifyeSQ8xd%252BYqBRdmni%252FRwF1k9R3uzWRA9gD67h2bKAQdfDdk5%252FqwQlgvT%252BjADQceK2lM5oKkND7dt1Up%252BNh093Xx8OrExDjmBDy04WMU2fWT6ywHyl4pYbny6qNC7GQrCau1cmilKMA%253D%253D%7Ccksum%3A133438565431f39090e8eb1041b695da88c4ccaf2fb3%7Campid%3APL_CLK%7Cclp%3A2334524

I found that the sticky velcro lost it's stickiness but I solved that by using super glue. I cut the blind to larger than the size I needed then hemmed it using wonderweb and the occasional stitch. This gave it a neater and stronger edge. I put the velcro on three sides of the window but used magnets on the window latch side. I stuck the small magnets on with superglue. You don't need to put magnets on the whole side. Then I pushed the net against the velcro and held the magnet side in place with loose magnets that hold through the net.

We use glass fly traps hung around the garden, a can of lager distributed between each bottle and the flies just can’t resist.
In summer we hang them nearer the house. We live among fields of cows and have fruit trees still lots of flies.
The traps don’t attract bees for some reason so no danger there. Perhaps bees are teetotal.

Meant to say we get very few in the house as they’re caught before they enter

Some great ideas here! I do wonder about next door as they have a bit of a small-holding thing going on. Horses, geese and maybe chickens as well as about five dogs!

I don't think they are cluster flies and they are too big for fruit flies.

I may try the beer idea outside too- anythings worth a go.

This is as close to countryside as I've ever been so maybe I just have to be resourceful and try anything to see if it works!

Another good tip that works for us is to plant lemon smelling plants near windows, lemon balm, lemon thyme, etc., flies don’t like the smell of lemon.
The little fly catcher bottles were £3 each from Garden Trading. Other outlets are available.

Could they be cluster flies? We get them and have the loft space 'fogged' annually to kill them.

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Reported.

Sticky fly catchers - eeeugh, no way. Gross. You can use those bamboo thin strips in the doorway if you don’t have flyscreens or those plastic ones but they are not that nice. I have seen some that look ok but it wouldn’t solve the window problem. We have flyscreens on most windows here, you just have to. You can get sliding ones for the windows which move across. Very fine wire and you don’t really notice them. This year they haven’t been so bad but in the evening you get mossies if you leave windows open and they just love me to bits.

nanna you are in Australia aren’t you. Your windows are designed for fly screens. Ours well those of us with older windows generally have windows that open outwards wi5h handles and stays that intrude into the window sill.
I’ve done the thing with net and Velcro but it’s fiddly. You have to keep lifting it up and repositioning whenever you want to open and close the windows.
If you put the Velcro on wooden windows then take care when removing. I took some of the wood with it. DH had a good reason to say- I told you so!!!

Our house was built on a pig farm and we've been plagued with flies for years and years. They nest up in the loft and then come down into the house.

I have tried absolutely everything.

The only product to work is to use one of these it's a smoke bomb.

You light it and leave it. And it kills the flies that are nesting.

We get cluster flies and need three monthly treatments to our loft space. It’s a barn conversion and it’s to do with the flies come back to lay their eggs etc.

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