My feed
Premium

Please
or
to access all these features

AIBU?

To think thunder flies are the scourge of the British summer?

47 replies

mycatlikestwiglets · 29/07/2014 14:27

Itchy little fuckers are everywhere today. I have been driven out of my garden and back into my very noisy house where workmen are. I actually think that when humankind is extinct it may be thunderflies that take over the earth

OP posts:
Report
Salmotrutta · 29/07/2014 14:28

I have no idea what a thunderfly is but I'm sure you are not unreasonable.

Grin

Report
RoganJosh · 29/07/2014 14:30

Wherabouts in the country do they appear? My bit of Yorkshire seems ok so far

Report
ThatBloodyWoman · 29/07/2014 14:31

YABU.

Wasps are....

Report
Cereal0ffender · 29/07/2014 14:32

Are they harvesting near you? They tend to descent when the crops are disturbed. I hate them

Report
PrimalLass · 29/07/2014 14:33

Ah yes. We call them corn bugs, because they seem to come out when the corn is ripe.

Report
pippistrelle · 29/07/2014 14:33

I don't know what they are. Therefore they may not be the scourge of the British summer outside your back garden.

Report
Cereal0ffender · 29/07/2014 14:34

We once camped next to a field of the fuckers

Report
0dd · 29/07/2014 14:34

I've no idea what thunder flies are either.

I don't want to google in case there's close up pics.

Report
Janethegirl · 29/07/2014 14:34

Try ants, the little fuckers are driving me nuts.

Report
Andrewofgg · 29/07/2014 14:39

They probably think the same of us. Mean fuckers, swatting them and cutting down their habitat for our food!

Report
offtoseethewizard64 · 29/07/2014 14:45

We were plagued with them on Saturday - but none since.
My DD hates them as they crawl on her face and she is disabled and not able to brush them off so I spent all day in the garden trying to get them off her
So they are the bane of my life too - them and wasps.

Report
SweetPeaPods · 29/07/2014 14:51

We call them thunder bugs. They seem to love white or yellow tops. They are very annoying! I've spotted loads of wasps today, keep having to close the windows. Thankfully seem to have got rid of the flying ants. Boo to nature kill them all!

Report
5Foot5 · 29/07/2014 14:55

Oh God I haven't seen them for years but I grew up in a very rural part of Lincolnshire and I remember what irritating little fuckers they are round about harvest time. We used to call them "men of (w)root" incidentally.

Report
mycatlikestwiglets · 29/07/2014 14:57

Thanks Salmotrutta Grin.

I tried to take a photo but the iPhone wasn't up to it. They're the tiny black flies that look like this: -

and are crawly annoying itchy little blighters

OP posts:
Report
mycatlikestwiglets · 29/07/2014 14:57

I'm in the South East btw. They aren't confined to my garden!

OP posts:
Report
pippistrelle · 29/07/2014 15:30

I've googled so now I think I know what they are, and I do recall them from when I was a kid, and they were annoying as hell. Haven't seen any for ages though but I live in a city now, and I didn't when I was a kid.

Report
weegiemum · 29/07/2014 15:32

Wrong!

Midges are the worst!

Report
wafflyversatile · 29/07/2014 15:41

not really considering I have no idea what a thunder fly is.

Report
wafflyversatile · 29/07/2014 15:42

oh, corn lice.

I've had worse years. I was by a wheat field last week and there were a few around. I'm not keen, I admit.

Report
dottyaboutstripes · 29/07/2014 15:43

We have millions here and they are driving us insane. In Norfolk

Report
PterodactylTeaParty · 29/07/2014 15:50

Seconding midges. I was outside for about twenty seconds walking from car to door the other day, and I count fourteen itchy red bites now. Bastards.

Report
mycatlikestwiglets · 29/07/2014 15:52

See I haven't seen a midge in years but thunderflies (or corn lice ) are everywhere here atm. They've been mildly irritating for a couple of weeks but today they've gone to plague status IMO

OP posts:
Report

Don’t want to miss threads like this?

Weekly

Sign up to our weekly round up and get all the best threads sent straight to your inbox!

Log in to update your newsletter preferences.

You've subscribed!

chemenger · 29/07/2014 16:02

Harvest mites are the worst. They are attracted to elastic somehow so I end up with lines of incredibly itchy, weepy bites along underwear lines. They also love the backs of knees and inside of elbows. Nobody else in the family gets bitten except the cat and she is horribly allergic and pulls all the fur out of her tummy, usually needs steroids and antibiotics and generally costs a fortune. I have just read up about them and apparently they can be so localised that only one or two gardens in a village have them. So why me?

Report
softlysoftly · 29/07/2014 16:04

I had a thread on the little fuckers last week they are horrible!

I found one on my NIPPLE as I was trying to get DD3 latched Shock

Report
ouryve · 29/07/2014 16:05

I made the mistae of hanging white bedding out, today. Had to carefully blow them off before I folded it.

They get into everything. My old laptop had a dead one inside the screen. I don't know how long it would have survived in there, but it spent several hours walking about, then DS1 spotted it and squished it!

Report
Please create an account

To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.