Fly infestation. HELP!
 

About two days ago, I guess some flys got into my house. Now my house looks like Somalia (if you've been there, you know what I mean). I don't have rotting meat laying around, I don't have poop laying around, so that is not it.

How do I get rid of them, other than taking a flyswatter and hunting each and every fly?

One of those bug bombs is out of the question.

Any help?

There's probably some dead animal or trash nearby where the maggots have hatched. Find it and discard it, and the flies will disperse if there's nothing attracting them.

Flypaper, you know, the sticky strips. Hang a few of them. You wouldn't think something so basic would work as well at is does.

We have a neighborhood fly problem because the toad population is low this year. I understand your pain.

We have an electronic fly swatter that does wonders.

Had a fly problem about this time of year when I lived in the Midwest for a while. I used a vacuum cleaner. Sucked em' right up, nasty buggers.

Oooh, I dig the vacuum idea. Looks like I will put up fly strips, it will be the Appian Way of the fly world.

when he settles in like this, it's a bugger to get him out!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...g?t=1210074544

is that one of those fly paper strips shaped like a wheelbarrow?

yup, comes with it's own six-pack in genuine draft or lite flavours!

Shop vac, whoo hoo

Make sure you go ahead and take any trash out too. I left mine in a closed can over a weekend, while I went out of town, and maggots were all in it, when I got back. yeesh

You can buy fly traps - they have a liquid inside that smells like a dead thing, so don't spill. They catch a lot of flies, but are really for outdoor use.

My blood is like sweet candy to mosquitos, so I got something called a Skeeter Bag. It's a mesh cone that clips onto a box fan. The idea is that I hang out by the fan and as the mosquitos come to bite me they get pulled into the fan, and cannot crawl out against the wind. Maybe you could use something like that? If they're tiny little flies they may be fruit flies, which would be a little too small to get caught in the mesh (probably). You might be able to fabricate something like the bag and see if it works. Just put something delicious by the suck side of the fan...

One other thing that I've done is to take a plastic soda bottle, and cut off the top right where it starts to narrow. Turn that upside down so that the mouth faces into the remains of the bottle, then tape it up. Drop in something delicious like sugar water. It's much easier for them to get in than to get back out. There's a picture of it at Homemade Fly Traps - sugar water, yeast et c seems to draw them.

But yeah, get any trash, old fruit, et c out first. :)

cker - Cool freakin fly trap, I'm gonna make it just to make it. THANKS!!!

hahahhah.........found this through google.......never seen it before.


thanks Lucifer.......

Heh, and here I was going to suggest moving the beer fridge out of the house to get rid of 'em.

my feelings won't be hurt noodle.......:D

It's a good idea to double check the flowers, herbs and general garden stuff, too. If you have a lot of weed around you'll find the buzzing going on day and night. Noodle's idea will help with the in-house problem, but you will never get them off the porch/out of the yard unless the fridge is empty and the weed is all gone.

You can make one really easily by putting warm apple cider vinegar in bottles, fill about a quarter of the way up and put in a drop of soap, but don't shake. The vinegar attracts the flies, they land to get a drink, and the soap has broken the surface tension and they fall in and drown. Add a few drops of a gourmet cooking wine (mine had blackberies, I think) and they like it even more. I literally had bottles with inches of sludge composed of dead flies and vinegar. they didn't come back for a few years until a new platoon with no knowledge of the massacre stowed away in a bag of apples. The war is almost over again.

MSD, that's a good trick. It works for horse flies just as well as fruit flies.

Now if only we could figure out how to incorporate the vinegar trick into a few more threads on the TFP. It might not be enough to take Fly out, but if we could get him to stick around for a while...

Yesterday at the grocery store, I saw Venus fly traps for sale. When I inevitably get another infestation of fruit flies in a few months, I'm going to buy a few.