You know the whole 'Plagues of Egypt' thing?

[FurrySlipperBoots]

I have something similar going on over here. Except instead of locusts, it's crane flies. After dodgy summers, we get a few, after decent summers, we get a lot. I HAVE NEVER IN MY LIFE SEEN ANYTHING LIKE THIS! There are craneflies, on top of the crane flies, on top of the crane flies, on top of everything else... (Craneflies are those daddy-long-legs winged floaty insect things that disintegrate if you glance at them). They're all in various stages of 'demise', crawling brokenly about. Has my home been singled out or is it the same everywhere?! I used to have a full on phobia of them and I would have gone out of my mind with fear a few years back. I just have a strong distaste for them now, and freak out a little bit if they get near my face or touch me. Absolutely revolting things and a ridiculously flawed design. What's even the point in a creature that's purpose in life if to fall apart and die slowly and miserably? What are they adding to the world?!

Anyway, rant over. I just wanted to know if everyone else is overwhelmed with them too?

Oh god yes, we have masses (town in Hertfordshire here!) We've got a problem with our cat flap getting stuck open whenever the cat comes in, and the buggers keep flying in through it and flailing madly around the house. Hideous things. The cat has been catching them and eating them, though, so at least that's keeping them vaguely under control....

We have loads in our house (Kent) - they all seem to come in to die. I am getting very irritated with them. One last night had lost nearly all of its legs and kept flapping about on the table. Yuck!

I'm in Cornwall too and I have noticed a fair few. But the loads of spiders we have are catching them in their webs. It's a dog eat dog world out there.

(Hurricane Lorenzo should blow them all away)

East mids here and no more than usual. In fact there weren't much about if I think back to the summer.

Wow, we've had none here! I remember a year (1982-ish) when we millions of them though - if you walked across a field, clouds of them would come out of the grass.

I don't wind them really, they're slow and non-scary, and they don't sting or bite,

I can happily report that I have seen zero crane flies here in our little corner of South West Scotland. No crane flies. Just how I like em.... none existent.

We have had hundreds of the bloody things this year in my little corner of Worcestershire.

Heaving with the little buggers down here in coastal South Wales! Grim. My 9YO keeps asking me to remove them from her room, and cries if I don’t 😒.

I can’t stand them: I remember being chased around the playground aged around 6 by a friend who used to catch them and try to put them in my hair. Also, went camping at that age too, and my little tent bedroom was full of them. Couldn’t sleep.
Awful, pointless ugly things.

None here in Lincolnshire.
But they really are the shittest designed animals ever, you just have to breathe on them and they just fall apart

If it starts raining frogs let me know.

The larvae eat dead organic matter and help make nutrient rich soil.

And yes, as far as I recall, it's the adult (winged) stage that's only 10 - 15 days. Still pretty shit for them but better than being a mayfly I guess.

I'm in Cornwall too. Haven't noticed many this year, but I certainly have in the past at this time of year. I don't really mind creepy crawlies though.

Hertfordshire here too, and loads of them seem particularly attracted to the white walls!

Crane fly orgy at my house last night, the filthy gits.

Also Herts!

Minimal here in Bedfordshire, but we do have a lot of starlings round here and they love eating the leatherjackets, so maybe they've scoffed most of them before they hatched. Feeding starlings is about the only thing that daddy long-legs are good for.

Also Sussex here. Lots of em, perhaps more than usual, but not plague levels. I do however have big patches in my lawn from the leatherjackets! Grrr!

Fly plague people ... the electric racket and these sticky flowers that go on the window are your friend.

Few more than usual here in Berkshire. Though that might be because my cat is getting old and doesn't chase and eat them any more.

Crane fly larvae eat the roots of your grass. How is that good?

Live in Essex. I don’t think we have more than any other year.

Huh. I’ve only seen one, caught in a web in my house.

Not seen many crane flies this year. Where you really don't want them is a classroom. How something so benign and flimsy can cause so much hysteria and pandemonium is beyond me.

It was house flies in the summer. After the record beating heatwave, we had maggots. Fortunately the kitchen was sealed up and clean when we went on holiday and the escapees hatched. We came back home to a mass of the dead things and the windows splattered in flecks of fly poo. Gross.

FFS - there was a live one in our fridge at work this morning!! God knows how it got there, our windows don't open and there are several sets of doors between the outside and our kitchen.

We've had a plague of tiny gnat/fruit fly things over the last couple of months, on the first floor. Don't know where they are coming from but I keep finding hundreds on the windowsills and in any cobwebs (cobwebs v rare obvs as I dust daily )