Help!!! Flies EVERYWHERE!!!

[letsjog]

We usually don't have any but on Saturday I had the window open all day as it was lovely and warm and I noticed Quite a few of them on the inside of the window maybe 10-15 which was a little unusual as we generally have maybe one or two.
Didn't think much of it got rid of them and put it down to having the window open.

I was out from morning until about 6pm last night and came back to at least a hundred on the same window on the inside !!!

Seal off the chimney and if that doesn't work, borrow someone's fur baby and they should be able to lead you to the origins of the problem using their enhanced sense of smell.

Cluster flies are most active in (roughly) April, but make a smaller reappearance in September.
They are harmless, dopey and not filthy like blowflies.
They live in fields (are you in the countryside OP?) and our cats love to catch them against the window!

Apparently it is pointless trying to get rid of cluster flies as you will never manage it, so you have to learn to live with them. (Although I never venture into our loft - that's where they hibernate!)

We had this last month,I never found the source but just chased them out of the window or smacked with tea towel.Its a pain but limited.I also bleached bins and sinks but it made no difference.
We have cats though!

One day last week I left my bathroom window open until about midnight (I didn’t mean to). When I went to close it there was hundreds of flies in the bathroom. They where tiny though, smaller than the one in your photo. I went to Tesco and bought Raid fly spray, sprayed the bathroom and closed the door. They where all dead in the morning.

They puns like cluster flies. Right time of year and they gather on the inside of Windows. They are notoriously difficult to eradicate. They breed in fields where cows are.
You can put mesh up at window to stop them coming in a bit. You can spray and hoover them. You can keep curtains closed to contain them but really not much to be done. They are ghastly.

Sounds exactly like the cluster flies we had a couple of years ago. Spent a few days hoovering them up and catching on sticky strips and got fed up, so did a smoke bomb thing and it worked.

We had lots of flies last year, but around the kitchen extractor. I had heard some banging one night and thought something had got trapped somewhere but couldn't find anything.

When the weather got warm there were flies appearing in the kitchen, even with the door and windows shut. Then I heard a humming sound, which was coming from the extractor, as I stood there I saw a fly emerging from around the edge, so I assume some poor creature had managed to get in under the vent and fall down. Extractor stopped working too, and when I removed it the wires were falling to bits, maybe had been chewed.

I taped the edges of the extractor until the humming noise stopped, it was obviously buzzing that sounded weird because it was inside the metal hood. Not had a repeat and still have no working extractor fan.

I was surprised at the tiny space they were getting through.

We had this a few years back, dead bird in the fire place was the cause. I hope you get it sorted out.

Mine came from chimney. It had a door but they were getting out underneath. Sealed it and sprayed fly spray. Problem solved.

We had this many years ago - a long and grisly story. 🤢 Anyhoo, not very enviro friendly, but we sprayed round the skirting boards and beneath appliances. Unpleasant results but better than having them on the wing. Sympathies

The flies come through your plug holes & overflows in sinks & your kitchen bin

Flies can't come in through plug holes: there's a U-bend underneath which is full of water, and they can't swim. They won't spontaneously arise from your bin, either--your bin would have to remain unemptied for some time for flies to breed in there.

They develop from eggs laid in dead meat, usually. So if you have a lot of them there's probably a dead thing somewhere in your house.

Happened to me
Maggots laid from upstairs flat maybe a rat died inbetween and maggots coming from the light fittings..when I blocked everything up I had random flies appear
Disgusting terrible time all you can do is kill them

You have something dead somewhere-sorry! I don’t envy you at all 🤢

www.cotswold.gov.uk/media/1503740/Cluster-fly-fact-sheet.pdf

We had this - dead bird in the chimney. Get fly papers and these www.amazon.co.uk/Rentokil-Fw35-Window-Fly-Traps/dp/B000TAWHKW/ref=sr_1_7?s=outdoors&keywords=flower&tag=mumsnetforu03-21&qid=1568669275&sr=1-7
Spray once the kids are at school. You will get on top of them!

Are you in the Midlands? We have loads at the moment, I assumed the sun brought them out at the weekend. 🤮

We had this a couple of months ago; sounds stupid but we just opened the windows! Closed all doors and left the rooms for a couple hours. Not been back since.

I had my own thread about flies last week (mine turned out to be the biscuit beetles) and chimney sweeper pulled a dead crow out of our chimney on Sunday. All gone now. Check the chimney!!!

Thank you for all the replies! I thought I'd update.

To pp I am in the countryside so might be a higher chance of getting them?

So I hoovered them up on the Sunday night and more yesterday morning and another 20 or so in the day. I also hung a fly trap (the one you put water in) on the window handle and sprayed Dettol spray (for a lack of anything else in the house) around all the little gaps near the fireplace.

There hasn't been anymore overnight thank god! But I'm not going to say they're definitely gone yet! I'll give it a few days. Only a couple in the fly trap so far.

There's about 10 which are most likely here since yesterday hanging around front and back windows which I will tackle now.

I will keep you posted if they return!

Suffolk has been plagued by flies this summer, I have never had as many in the house as I have this year.

There was a TV programme on a week or 2 ago about a woman whose flat got infested with flies and it turned out the neighbour upstairs had died. Glad it looks like you've sorted the problem though

I've got tiny little ones (size of a pin head) do same rules apply for them? Not got a chimney so don't know where they keep appearing from!

We got cluster flies a few years ago - they were settling to hibernate in the loft space and came in to the room through the ceiling spotlights We took a spotlight out, popped a smoke bomb up into the ceiling space and shut the bedroom door. Opened it up a few hours later to a black carpet of dead flies - eurgh! It cleared them though and we haven't had them since.