House flies!!

Is it just us or is everyone having a horrible year with flies in the house?

We have secure screens everywhere. We keep trash and recycles sealed, Compost goes way out back, promptly, and has been cooking beautifully and is NOT a source. We clean up dog waste every day . There are no dead bodies laying about. Where are all these flies coming from and why into our house? We kill a couple every day. Getting sick of it.

Local library branch is similarly plagued. One theory is that with our trash pickup having gone to once a week, there are just more flies in the area. And with patrons constantly opening the doors, the flies get in. Our house has a lot of traffic in and out also.

And what do you do about it?

I will comment on Fungus Gnats--not exactly flies--but here is what I
have observed....

First of all--I keep all my accumulating veggie scraps in a plastic
shoe box container with a lid. Not tight lid--as these boxes have fairly
loose edges.
Into this box go all my peelings, rotten lemons or apples, carrot peels, etc.

ONLY when I have put in cantelope rinds--in a matter of a couple days--I see
all these tiny larva crawling about under the lid rim and along the edge of the box.
On closer examination--many of them are stil in a "pupa" staage, and
some are tiny larva crawling around. Fungus Gnats to be...

I have in the past sprayed the whole inside with an insect spray--
but more often, I just take the thing outside and dump it in my SEM (Stupid
Earth Machine) --my black, plastic "somposter". Then wash it out and put it back.

Very seldom do I see actual flies--and if i do--I know it snuk in while
i was going outside-or coming in.

Sally--perhaps, somewhere in your house, is a "hatching chamber" for flies?
And--your doors get a lot more open--close than mine...

Gita

I don't have regular flies inside -- maybe every so often, but not enough to be an issue.

I do have fungus gnats, and I've been meaning to post about them. They get in the house plant soil. Suggestions? I don't like to use chemicals....

The old fashioned fly tape will work but looks so awful.

For the gnats we just put an ounce or two of old wine in a small glass, cover it with Saran Wrap (wrapping it tightly), poke a few holes and the gnats and/or fruit flies will go for the wine, get in the glass but can't get out. I just emptied four glasses of them.

I tried cranberry juice in one glass but they selected the wine over the juice almost every time!

Pirl, great tip!

We're doing okay this year on the flies--but as usual a lot of gnats and mosquitoes outside that sneak in when they can...

Sally, I've noticed a lot of houseflies in the garden, but they rarely get in the house.

I don't use any cow manure, so I wonder what the flies find so fascinating about my clay dirt. They literally swarm around patches of bare dirt. I think they might be attracted to the remnants of "presents" left behind by the neighborhood cats.

Are your neighbors just as meticulous about cleaning up after their pets?

Pirl -- I did that trick too (I cut a plastic bottle in half, inverted the top part on the new hole in the bottom, filled it part way with vinegar, water and a dot or two of detergent). It collected lots of gnats, but I never seemed to get rid of them altogether.

I may just move my house plants outside for a while until I get rid of them inside the house (without a source of moisture they can't survive), and then figure out a new plan of attack. I'd like to discover that they won't lay eggs in soil if it is covered with sand, or the like....)

Spread cinnamon over the soil. I am sure that was on DG sometime in the past. It is supposed to deter fungus gnats and the cinnamon prevents them from laying eggs.

ssgardener- I can't imagine why flies would swarm bare dirt. But if there are a lot of feral cats...you may have the connection. Did you see a news item recently, local researchers released another warning about Toxoplasmosis from cats..no news to the known and suspected health risks, but a re emphasis that Toxoplasmosis makes cysts and persists in the environment.
Mea culpa- - two cats that go outside at will...
I don't 'think' I have any pig neighbors, but there are dog/dogs in almost every household around mine.

Any hatching chamber for houseflies would either be "waste" or a carcass. Either of which would have dried up at some point. Ditto for the library. The flying flies have been going on for weeks.

We make enough kitchen scraps that it has to go out almost daily.

Disgusting as this sounds- DS left a tuna can of bacon grease cooling on the counter- it has become a death trap for three flies - we are leaving it on the counter. Thats how desperate I am.

House flies love cantalope rinds outside. Maybe I'll put a rind and the grease can out there.

Pirl-----OLD WINE???? Never hear of it around here.....:o


Happy-- ALL my houseplants go outside for the summer....they love it and
need the humidity. They thrive! Just mind the light requirements....
The only things that i do not take outside are my AV's and Streps.
Also--my one, measly Pothos and my old, tall Snake Plant.
I also heard once from a commercial plant maintainer in office buldings
that adding 1Tbs. of vinegar to one gallon of water and using that to water
the plants with will kill all the larva. Not 100% sure on this....

Sally--
Maybe you can work one of those sticky pads in or around your Cantelope
and catch more flies....same color......G.

A few years ago we had serious issues with flies in our area. The houses were just covered with them to the point you couldn't get into and out of the house with out a couple of doz getting in. We even knew neighbors that went to a local hotel for a week just to get away from them. They had spread something on some fields in the area and that is where we all thought they came from. The covered several miles of homes.

ew! sounds horrible!

We had something similar, but not as bad, back in the early 90's. It happened for two years and not only to us but to my daughter who then lived an hour west of us. Around July 3rd they'd cover the inside of all south and southwest windows. I gave in and bought the ugly fly tape but they were awful.

Ours was 2 summers as well the second summer not near as bad but much much more than usual.

Pirl--

That is so weird!!! What makes them congregate like that???

The old vacuum cleaner may have helped......like they were
recommending for Stink bugs...

BTW--WHAT happened to all the stink-bug craze???
Anyone still see any? Was that some kind of a "cosmic thing"
a couple years ago? What will be next???

We never even thought of a vacuum cleaner!

I agree, Holly. The second year wasn't nearly as bad but still disconcerting. We wives always look to what we may have done wrong but I think it was a freak of nature.

It was! The side of the house would be black with them. They had brought a couple of truck loads of chicken manure into a local farm and spread it just about the time this occurred. Most of the time we don't have a big problem. Sometimes a bunch of rainy days will find them congregating on the front porch. I usually put a couple of TATs up out there when that happens.

House fly life cycle fromegg to adult can be as little as 14 hours! And in 2-3 days adults can start laying their thousand eggs, The warmer the weather the faster they breed. Typically 12 generations per year but one warm month like we just had could easily have 5-6! A mild winter allows more flies to overwinter as adults or pupa and an early spring gives more generations, too,

Couple this with declines in insect eating birds and especially amphibians and population explosion math kicks in.

I fed my ferral cats a can of cat food early one morning and when I came back to collect the dish 2 hrs later and tiny scraps left behind were covered in fly eggs . The bees are also immediately drawn to an outdoor feeding of canned cat food...the cats almost race to eat before the bees show up and the cats retreat even though there is some food left to consume. After the bees come the ants, then flies then dung beetles!

Sorry, I'd write more but I'm thinking about ssgardener wanting to get a whiff of the rotting flesh smell of the Titan Arum Corpse flower! Egad just what pollenaters does that draw?

I've seen some small stink bugs, but it is early yet for them .And the overwintering adults that came out of hibernation in warm spell early Feb may not have found any leaves on which to lay their eggs as most plants had not yet broken dormancy.

Sticky tapes are effective, ugly, and very sticky. One of our dogs was quite adept at catching bothersome flies.

Pirl: Thanks for the cinnamon suggestion -- I'll check whether it might hurt the plants (I once put boric acid on plant soil because of ants -- big mistake).

Gita: I'll also check your suggestion of adding 1Tbs. of vinegar to one gallon of water and using that to water the plants to kill all the larva. Mightn't that impact the acidity of the soil in a way that could be detrimental to some plants? In any event, I'll check.

Happy - see the first post in this link for more on the cinnamon:
http://idigmygarden.com/forums/showthread.php?t=54309

happy--
I have never used the vinegar in water--so do some more research on that
before you kill your plants. I bet coleup will.....Someone just told me that.....

BUT--Here is what works with vinegar--someone here suggested putting
a TBS or so of vinegar in your bird bath to keep it clean.
Mine is concrete, sits in the sun, and gets so much alga on it-- it turns green.
I scrub it clean with bleach and water--rinse well and then fill it with
fresh water--and add a Tbs. of vinegar. Amazingly--it stays clear...

We have all heard the thousands of uses for vinegar...
G.

http://www.vinegartips.com/scripts/pageviewsec.asp?id=6

http://www.wikihow.com/Garden-With-Vinegar

There's a lot more--just Google "Uses for Vinegar."... G.

Sally, I did hear about the latest research regarding cats and toxoplasmosis.

This little bit was a bit frightening: "gardeners may have as many as 100 oocysts in dirt under their fingernails." Yikes.

I used to see feral cats literally every day but I haven't seen them in a few weeks. I wonder if I they're hiding out from the heat, or if the county actually captured them.

Coleup, I forget exactly which pollinators the "corpse flowers" attract, but they were insects that like decaying matter. ;)

SSG--yikes indeed about the oocysts! :-b

Also think I'll pass on planting a 'corpse flower' in my backyard... Not that I was thinking of it--LOL!

Gita: Thanks for the reminder about the vinegar in the birdbath -- I've read that before but it was "in one ear and out the other." I'll try to remember -- mine gets gross.

Pardon me but egg to adult in 14 hours seemed just too hard to believe. Here's more than you probably want to know and see about house flies

http://entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/urban/flies/house_fly.htm

Our near constant rain has possibly given them the constant moist conditions they need to develop.

Note-"sand or soil containing small amounts of degraded manure allows for successful development [of the larvae]" Ew. (looking askance at my cats)

Happy, I use vinegar as a gentle herbicide in the garden area, I don't think putting it on plant is a good idea.

Ric -- I agree. I may try using vinegar between the flagstones on our patio this year -- what do you think? That wouldn't damage the soil long term if I use a dilute solution.

Actually, what I probably should do is use corn gluten -- I hadn't thought of that -- in the spring when I put it on everything else.

I had flies in the house a few years ago. They were attracted by grapes I planted near the side door that fermented on the vine.
These grapes were planted for the birds and I wasn't careful to monitor their removal after the birds were finished with them.
The grapes at that stage also attracted wasps.
They both tried to get in the house when the door opened so it was a real challenge to get into the house without unwanted visitors.
A season of the yellow fly strips solved the indoor problem and careful monitoring of the grapes solved the outdoor one.

Next time I won't plant grapes near the door.

Good to know, sempervirens.

Our flies have mysteriously abated. But I went to Ace Hardware last week anyway and asked. They sell a fly trap which is a flat triangular small box (4" by4" by 1/2 " ) with openings and sticky stuff inside. You place this in the corner of the windows and flies etc are supposed to fall in there in their natural course of bumbling around at the window for escape. The salesman said he has good results with the trap. He feeds feral cats and has lots of flies around, he said. ( I didn't ask why he doesn't use dry food then...)

Had a couple flies this week. DH killed one and dropped it in the trap, one fell in on its own.

Gita you posted about a bad day with flies. Last year we had an event where something stayed in the trash can too long- suddenly one day little maggots going across the floor. HORRORS!!!!
We compost so much we have to be aware of how long our garbage is in the kitchen- however SINCE we compost, very little of it can actually support flies.

Sally--
They are still around--but not as many as yesterday.

I compost ALL veggie scraps--have one of those plastic shoe-box size
containers right next to my sink. I must empty it in my SEM at least twice a week.

I have noticed that--Gnats will lay their eggs under the lid and around the rims
IF I have Cantelope rinds in there--or rotting Tomatoes. Then--all of a sudden--
I see these tiny (2-3mm) larvae crawling all over.
I would not think that flies are attracted to lay eggs in veggie scraps???

If I have some meat stuff to discard--and trash p/u is only once a week, I try to
wrap them up in plastic baggies. Now and then--if it stinks to much--I will put it
in my outside trash can. More fresh air...

I am thinking that SOMEWHERE in the house the flies have laid their eggs.
But would they pupate and become big flies in ONE week???
I am open for suggestions of WHERE?????
They seem very attracted to light--as I only see them on windows.
And--mostly in my kitchen.

"Tis a mystery!!!! G.

Sometimes its a mystery. Doesn't sound like anything you are doing would foster them.

I don't know about the compost, but if you have the maggot issue with regular garbage, try using rubbing alcohol in the bin or even on the bag (however you do it) and even on live maggots. only the bravest flies will try to land in the alcohol, and the maggots will die, so will the nasty disgusting pupa.

the alcohol also evaporates and leaves nothing behind but dry, disinfected surface and the maggots will be easier to clean, you can just dump or wipe them into your lawn or the driveway. it's great since maggots hate being dry. I learned that since bleach (and those types of things) doesn't evaporate fast, it just leaves behind a safer damp environment for the flies.

I also tried incense, the smell and smoke keeps most flies away and once you light the stick, you can throw it into the trash bin and close the lid.

they do grow extremely fast. when I did a fruit fly breeding lab in school, there were new fruit flies almost daily and they inbreed so there is a constant flow of flies.

just a suggestion.

coastalzonepush -- your alcohol trick is very interesting. I have a compost pail that I just run through the dishwasher periodically. I'm not clear on when I should use the rubbing alcohol.

thanks for your advice coastalzonepush!

I've heard of using ammonia in the trash bag to repel pests. That again would add moisture though.

For kitchen scraps we just take them outside as frequently as needed so there are no fruit flies (seen) in the house.

We try to do the same here, empty the counter top ice bucket before fruit flies get a start. If not a shot of vinegar left out over night usually drowns them.
Sally I think the ammonia in the trash trick is an attempt to keep mammals out of curbside trash.