Flies in December??

[simsfreq]

We have some kind of infestation of flies and can't get rid of them. They even seem to be immune to fly spray now (which is probably more poisonous to us than them anyway)

Any ideas?

[WendyS]

Could you possibly have a small dead mouse or any other deceased creature rotting away somewhere which a cat might have bought into the house and which is now decaying? The flies could be coming from the maggots which have developed in the warm centrally heated atmosphere.

Or you might possibly also have a dead bird or two that has been trapped in your roof space and died which is now slowly decomposing.

If you have a good windy day you could try opening all the windows wide for a while to get a good blast of cold fresh air blowing through the house. The ensuing drop in termperature might finish them off or encourage them to move outdoors where they will die off. They're probably thriving because of the warm centrally heated rooms in which they find themselves.

[simsfreq]

We have wondered about that, we do have a cat. Haven't noticed any smells or found anything though despite looking. It's probably not a dead bird in the roof as they're all staying downstairs and it's a fairly new house with no chimney.

Next time we have a windy day I'll try that opening all the windows! We'll have to get some wooly jumpers out!

[shaneystar2]

Well it is very mild for the time of year in spite of these dreadful gales and storms and we had a wretched fly indoors yesterday I soon settled his hash though ! It has been so mild today we turrned the heating off and yesterday believe it or not I got stung on the leg by some evil creepy crawly whilst hanging my washing out !! Have you checked your dustbins or wheelies?

[simsfreq]

The inside dustbin gets emptied every week and the small bin we use to collect composting stuff is emptied every other day if not daily, so not that.

We do have a house rabbit and have started cleaning him out more often in the hope this will deter them. Thanks for the suggestions!

[hartley]

I had a lot of very small flies in my house recently, they were driving me mad. We really couldn't work out where they were coming from but eventually found a couple of rather mouldy potatos that had fallen down the back of a shelf in the kitchen.
If they are the very small house flies then they are attracted to fruit, vegetables and fermenting liquids. They seemed to congregate around wine bottles that had been kept for recycling (but not rinsed out, oops!).
Before we found the source I became obsessed with setting tempting wine/jam based traps and, when a few gathered, blasting them with fly spray....