Chronicles of a Sleepy Rabite

Okay, so.

I got home, found three flies on the middle level right off the bat, and this was BEFORE I opened the door. I broke down and called an exterminator (the same one we used for the mice), and I left a message. I then went downstairs with the vacuum cleaner, and that’s when I saw the 6-7 flies buzzing around.

I was crying and running away from the flies while trying to suck them up with the vacuum when the exterminator called back, and they told me they couldn’t make it until Tuesday. The lady was extremely helpful, though, and suggested we try Vapona strips. I had one kicking around from when I was having fungus gnat problems in my plants, so when Sky got home, we set the one up in the laundry room, then we both chased after the flies with the dustbuster and the vacuum and sucked up everything in the living room. Then we went out to get some more strips… ($12?! WTF?!)

When we came home (this was about an hour later), we saw no flies in the living room… and when we opened the laundry room door, the floor was littered with dead flies.

We put another strip at the other end of the laundry room, under the stairs, but we ditched our plans to throw some strips up in the tear-away ceiling. We saw ONE fly out in the open, but it was pretty much dead.

Some might be amused by the fly swatters we bought. I wrote “JUSTICE” in big permanent marker on mine, and Sky wrote “VENGEANCE” on his. We haven’t needed to use them.

I hope this means the end of the flies… it’s too early to tell, and I’m frankly scared to go in the laundry room right now, but there’s hope…

In case anyone’s wondering where that’s from, it’s Earthbound.

So, apparently we have cluster flies:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cluster_fly

(Don’t click the link if you don’t want to see a picture of a very small fly.)

Kit-Kat says:
… that looks right…

Brad @ Work says:
IDENTIFYING THE CLUSTER FLY

They average between 1/4 to 3/8 inch long. They are dark gray, never metallic blue or green. When crushed, they give off an odor like buckwheat honey. Cluster flies closely resemble house flies, but they are usually larger and have a yellowish sheen on the thorax.

Brad @ Work says:
…
If you have unseasonably warm weather in the late fall or winter, they may emerge thinking it is spring, going for the warmer air outside. They fly very slowly when they just wake up. They are strongly attracted to light, so they are usually found around windows. At night they are attracted to lamps.

Kit-Kat says:
Great! How do we get rid of them? >.>

Brad @ Work says:
Cluster fly problems can be partially prevented, but after the fall little can be done. All of those currently found within the home had infiltrated walls months ago.
A “mini-vac” is the best control of the individual flies that are currently present.

Brad @ Work says:
If this is not successful an aerosol like CB-80 pryethrum contact aerosol can be used. Spray lightly and repeat spray as needed.

An alternate would be electronic fly traps such as:

COMMERCIAL FLY TRAP-FT 30

INSECTALITE 18 WATT PROFESSIONAL FLY TRAP and the INSECTALITE 30 WATT PROFESSIONAL FLY TRAP

Brad @ Work says:
Late August and early September are the times to use a good residual spray like Suspend or Demon WP,spraying the outside walls of the building where cluster flies are likely to land and rest before entering the building.

These residual insecticides are applied outdoors to window frames, door frames, soffits and eaves as well as any other areas that are vulnerable to entry.

Brad @ Work says:
Application of to the surrounding soil may also help minimize Cluster Fly populations and later entry.

Recommended also would be a dust like Delta Dust, dusted into cracks that have not been sealed, allowing the dust to flow back into the void areas.Thoroughly caulking all exterior cracks on the sun-exposed sides (south and west) is very important.

So right now, there’s nothing we can do to get rid of them since they’re all adults. We’re going to try preventing it from happening again by putting insecticides outside, though…

I didn’t want to blog about this (because it’s, well, gross), but we have a fly problem.

By fly problem, I don’t mean one or two flies. I’m talking about needing to kill 10-20 black flies per night.

It started about three days ago. We noticed that we had a couple of flies, and then we killed them. Then we saw the 6-10 in the basement windows. Eventually, it was a case of needing to kill a fly every five minutes.

We’ve hung fly strips (which are gross, by the way), but they’re catching about 1/5th of the flies. And these are big, huge, bumbling flies that are half-dead — some of them fly slow enough for us to kill by catching them in mid-air.

We’ve narrowed it down to them coming from the laundry room, and then they come out from under the door and through the light fixtures in the ceiling.

I’m not naive. I know damn well how flies reproduce and how they evolve. So it makes me wonder WHY we have an infestation of flies. The possibilities:

1. They’re feeding off an old dead mouse in the insulation (doubtful, this was a few years ago and even if there was something, there wouldn’t be much of anything left)

2. They’re feeding off a new dead mouse in the laundry room (but we’re not smelling anything dead, and the hole where they were coming in is still blocked tight)

3. They bred in the sump (huge possibility — it was very rainy this summer — but Sky saw nothing but a half-dozen dead flies in there when he checked)

4. They bred on a bucket I brought in from outside (another possibility, but there was nothing on said bucket when we checked, which means we’re going to have to weather it out)

5. We got really unlucky and a fertile fly flew in the house one day

We’re really messy, but we’re very clean. We don’t leave food lying around. The animals are clean (in fact, the flies are avoiding them). Black flies usually show up in dirty places, so this is making us really self-conscious.

Sky sprayed the laundry room with Raid, so we’ll see what it’s like tonight. I hesitate to do much more than that because of the animals, but if it comes down to that, I’ll move everything upstairs somehow (the fish tanks will be difficult) and call an exterminator…