Please help me identify this creature in my kitchen!

[Ellaroo]

In the last day or so we have had some 'things' in our kitchen and living room. They are a quite a light black colour (is there such a colour???!) about a millimetre and a half in size, have tiny wings, and can fly when chased. I have seen about 8 of them on the kitchen walls and ceiling this morning and saw one in the living room last night (they don't seem to fly unless you try and squash them - they seem to do a lot of sitting in one spot). We don't have any animals/pets. Any ideas on what it could be???? Thank you!!!!

midges?

You mean grey colour? I don't know what it could be, maybe you should post a photo, are they not tiny moths?

fruit flies maybe ?

hmm, at 1.5mm they just sound like tiny flies to me. Fruit flies are bigger and, when you look closely, are actually tan and brown striped.

TBH if you've only seen 9 in total I wouldn't worry - make sure everything's clean and all food etc is covered and put away. They're probably just coming into the house from outside now the weather's getting colder.

Definitely not fruit flies (have compared with recylcing bin to check and look different). I know that in theory light black is grey, but somehow they are still black, rather than grey! Definitely not moths.

Mrs Badger, can you really get flies that small? Yesterday had the back door open for quite a long time in the day and early evening - do you think that it could be that? I thought flies buzzed around more than that.

Thunder bugs? Are you near a field that is being harvested?

Could they be thunder flies?

There was a thread about thunder flies a couple of weeks ago I think.

We had a swarm of them in our kitchen about two weeks ago, but they only stayed for about 24hrs, HTH

Great minds think alike Martianbshop

flies get vv small indeed, mostly because when we say 'flies' it covers squillions of different species - it's like saying 'mammals' and thinking they'll all eat grass and neigh etc

I love mumsnet!!! Someone always seems to have the right answer - I think I have now identified them as thunder bugs. Thank you, thank you. Was ready to go out and buy industrial quantities of flea control substances.

Glad you have got it sorted Ellaroo, they should just disappear soon.

We hoovered them up! and kept the doors/windows shut until they stopped coming , but we did have about a million of them all over the house, as we have a huge wheat field directly behind our house!!

they get in your washing on the line too and make horrible squashy marks if they are still there when you come to iron. If you put washing in the tumble for 5 mins on hot, they all collect in the filter.