Fly infestation! Please someone help!!

[caoraich]

Aaaargh

Yesterday when I came home from work I went upstairs and found approx 15 horrible big black flies at each of our upstairs windows. There are 3 bedrooms and a bathroom plus hall window. They weren't buzzing or anything, just hanging out at the windows. They were easy to chase out of the windows but obviously I was totally grossed out.

Searched the house for any rotting food, couldn't find any, no maggots etc in the bins but I bleached the bins anyway and put drain cleaner down all the drains. We have 2 cats but they're indoor cats so don't bring anything in, and don't seem to have stashed any of their treats anywhere. Also scrubbed their litter tray.

By bedtime there were a few more flies at our bedroom window, again I got rid of them but we couldn't work out where they were coming from. This morning another 10 or so in the hall but nowhere else. We figured it would make sense to work out where they were coming from so closed off 2 of the upstairs rooms (the cats like to sleep in the spare room and their litter is in the bathroom).

However when I got home and opened the closed off rooms, there were just as many flies as yesterday at each window!!! WTF!? No flies at any of the downstairs windows, though.

Where are they coming from? What even are they? They don't really buzz and seem very sleepy. They look like bluebottles but are plain black and a bit smaller. What on earth can we do about them? I'm worried about spraying loads of chemicals around in case it harms the cats, but I can't for the life of me figure this out!! Please help me good people of MN....

[ChishandFips33]

Do you have a chimney?

[ChishandFips33]

You can still buy fly papers if you don't want to spray until you find the source of the problem just don't get stuck to them like I did

[CrispbuttyNo1]

I recommend fly papers too. We can’t spray as we have a fish tank. The papers are great.

[incywincybitofa]

I found flies were laying babies on the wall so by morning there were more of the blighters
Spray the walls of the rooms where you are finding them
I hate fly spray but this helps
I've found those sunflower sticker traps
help with catching them
Ciroenella candles are rubbish in my experience but if anyone has fab ones I'd live to know

[FlyingMonkeys]

Urgh, Also have this problem, plus two dogs I'm laying the blame at! Not really (sort of) but I think it's just the heat pulling them in recently. I use dry dog food and double bag dog poop but regardless in the heat it has to attract flies. Also vote for the sticky fly paper as I'm not overly thrilled on the fly spray.

[FlyingMonkeys]

Also recommend the tennis bat fly zappers from poundstretcher/b&m. Ideal for non chemical insect killing.

[cheesemongery]

They've hatched from somewhere - just keep letting them out or flypaper them. You won't find any maggots now as they've grown in to flies!

Bastard things!!

[IHeartKingThistle]

Google cluster flies (I think that's what they're called). They've holed up in your house somewhere. We had them two years ago but once that lot had been chased out/fly sprayed we didn't have them again. They tend to be the brownish black, slower moving ones.

They are horrid.

[caoraich]

Oh no KingThistle that's what I think they are. Seems like an odd time of year for them though!

Went on a whapping spree this morning and thought we'd got them all, but they were back by this evening when getting home sob

[Waitingforsherlock]

@caoraich. I second cluster flies. They might be in the frames of the window or the loft space. Two years ago we had Omen-esque scenes when I opened the loft space to find out what was inside. A smoke bomb sorted the problem out immediately

[antsinthejam]

We had these in a travelodge once. They were behind a picture on the wall, and all came out in the evening. I'd suggest stripping the room, then spray and hoover when you find them!

[schnubbins]

I have the same thing at the moment but in the kitchen.I count figure out where they were coming from but have just pulled out all the furniture from the walls and found a bunch of eggs string under our roomba which is plugged in under a console table out of sight.Yuck , yuck yuck and yuck.So I have now vacuumed up the remains flies that are also stuck to the window and the whole kitchen about five times , bleached the floors , work tops and basically everything in sight and I am going to steam clean the whole house.Be careful with meat in the summer.I freeze all my scraps of meat in this heat (38 degrees where I am) and put them out every two weeks at bin collection time.Meat is the worst to attract flies.

[ppeatfruit]

We use those 'natural' plug ins which are anti mosquitoes but they also do the job against flies. Pyrel is the name. Also there are natural sprays which use pyrethrum they work wonders. In the heat in the morning when it's cooler we like the front doors open, they fly in and go straight upstairs to the bathroom! For very no reason, they like dark places apparently. They aren't that bad fgs they don't sting or anything.

[ppeatfruit]

Sorry For no reason.

[caoraich]

schnubbins aaaaargh!

I Amazon-primed some of those ultrasonic plug-in things that are meant to deter beasties. After 2 nights the flies seem to have dissipated, though one or two still seen buzzing about the windows. We've had the doors open too so I'm hoping that's where these ones came from.

Got some pyrethrum spray too in case they reappear, but definitely haven't found the source yet, argh.

[ppeatfruit]

Please excuse those dreadful typos.