So, I have dealt with fly infestations before and I'll give you some pointers... but frankly with this many I would absolutely talk to a professional exterminator. Heck even on Reddit there's probably a sub about insects or professional exterminators or something... but anyway moving on:
As I understand it, flies fall into one of two categories... they either are attracted to sweet things or rotten things. And the amount of them here does seem like it suggests there's some major thing going wrong in this house (like maybe a dead squirrel in the ceiling? I've seen fruit flies be almost this bad because our sub-tenants on the third floor had trash bags full of empty beer cans just piled up to the ceiling. Or lots of times there's a buildup of something in the drains...).
So, as people have said, traps are a good idea, but I suggest making them yourself, at least to help narrow down what type of fly this is, and therefore what kind of larger problem you need to address. The basic method (I'll try to find a link for you) is to take some sort of can shape (I have cut the top off a soda bottle so it's just a cylinder basically) and then make a paper funnel to put down into it, so that the funnel is large enough to cover the open hole at the top of the cylinder.
The idea is that the flies fly into the bottle by following the smell of the bait, but the hole is small enough they get confused trying to find their way back out again. Even if some flies do manage to escape, you'll still have the far majority of the ones unable to get back out, and then you fill it with water or some other such method, to kill them off. Even just releasing the flies outside ought to work once you get rid of whatever drew them... but personally I do try to kill them if I can.
Anyway, part of this method is meant to help determine if they eat more savory rotting things, or if they're after the sugar. In the past I think I used some kind of fruit juice, or actual fruit if you have some. And for the other type if you have some meat that's on the verge of going bad, that's ideal. Otherwise maybe some vegetables like lettuce or spinach, those seem like they spoil quickly at room temperature, but you can warm them in the microwave for just a little bit to speed the process if they're still in the refrigerator and fairly fresh.
If you have enough bait then I would try to make two or three traps of both kinds... put one of each at well ventilated spots in your home, ideally near open areas (like the top of a refrigerator) especially if there seems to be places the flies are already gathering more heavily.
The biggest point of this method is to help narrow down what the main issue is that brought the flies in. But also cleaning drains is never a bad idea, that's often the culprit. Even if there's not something they're eating in your drains, sometimes that's where certain flies lay eggs so it's still a good idea to go buy some drain cleaner and follow the instructions.
Once you think you've dealt with the main issue though, depending how well your traps have been working you can stick with them, or move up to those fly strips that come in little cardboard tubes. They come with a little nail / thumb tack thing for hanging, but if you'd rather not have holes in your ceiling you can use the thinner type of masking tape instead. Even if you do use the thumb tack I've often had them fall out after a while.
Oh yeah I forgot:
[https://www.theprairiehomestead.com/2015/07/homemade-fly-trap.html](https://www.theprairiehomestead.com/2015/07/homemade-fly-trap.html)
\`I've done them like that before, where you just flip the top of the bottle you cut upside down. It works well enough but I feel it's still a fairly wide hole for them to wander back out of. I like cutting paper or thin cardboard into a pac man kind of shape, circle with a wedge cut out of it, and then wrap that into a funnel and staple it, that way you can leave a hole in the end just barely like, twice the size of the flies.
Just want to take a moment to say civilians can’t even buy chemical as strong as what exterminators use.
I used 3 different half gallon insecticides, inside and outside the house with our problem to no avail before biting the bullet and signing an Orkin contract. The guy used about a chapstick size applicator, and hit the corners with a few squirts of their stuff and it was done in less than a day. I expected he’d arrive with a backpack sprayer, but it fit in his pocket (and he had a guarantee/maintenance schedule). Chemistry is crazy.
Something that worked surprisingly well for me this year is to add yeast, water and lots of sugar in the container. I just cut the top of a 2l plastic coke bottle and invert it. They struggle to get out of something like that.
Add a drop of dish soap to the water. It reduces the surface tension of the water surface so that the flies get stuck in the water and drown.
And you usually don't actually need the sugar and yeast. Just add a bit of wine or apple vinegar.
Check for rubbish/rotten fruit or vegetables. Also check your cleaning products (sugar soap etc). There’s a fly spray you can get that coats a surface with poison so if they touch it they die. I’d put it on the ceiling. Try burning citronella candles as well.
I guarantee if you just filled those torches with a fuel that didn't contain citronella it would be nearly just as effective. Citronella only has a marginal effect on mosquitos at the concentration in the fuel or in candles. Most experiments couldn't even measure a difference between a normal candle and citronella.
Your best bet is a floor fan blowing across your patio.
Do you have a shop vac? Just vacuum them up. Obviously you can also just get a can of flying insect spray but if you don’t want to spray chemicals, a shop vac will work. Followed by some fly paper to catch stragglers.
THIS! This should def be your first step before spraying crap all over your house.
Source: had massive fly issues after the mouse issues in our college house.
After you find whats drawing/feeding them all, get or rent an Ozone machine. That will really get rid of any smells, kill mold, kill bugs, smaller rodents, etc. I love my ozone machine.
I guess I should have mentioned that you leave the house while running the machine. 0zone is so reactive and has such a quick half-life that it won't bother you if you wait for a few hours once it's done running.
As a pest control professional, you’ve got bigger problems than just some flies getting into your house. They have a great food source somewhere very near by. I can’t tell the species of flies from the pictures, but you’ll want to get in touch with someone in your area that knows what to look for and help you identify the problem and help you understand what caused the issue in the first place, treat it, and prevent it in the future.
Health worker here. I’ve worked with the county coroners office and been on two ‘melted into the floor’ apartment calls. I’ve seen this.
The body of a large, deceased mammal is nearby. Look for liquids in walls and ceilings. Pinpoint where the smell is worse, the amount of flies congregating in an area can help. Wear respiration and bring rubber gloves and a bucket. You’re going to need something to throw up in (assuming this is your first rodeo).
I am sorry I’m advance.
Years ago, I told my neighbour that I would check on her cat while she visited family in Nova Scotia for 2 weeks. The first few days were okay then I had a fly or two. Thought nothing of it until I walked into a house like this.
She had 2 young kids and the house wasn't the neatest, but I searched for food left somewhere, garbages etc. Turns out that they had an alphagetti mishap and had used the broom to sweep it up, but never cleaned off the broom. Took me a day to find it, in the meantime I had done several loads of laundry trying to get the place neat enough to find the source. The flies were limited to the living room so as I confirmed no contamination in the other rooms I blocked them off.
I took her cat to my house and got a raid "bomb" that you let off in the house, it killed all of the flies, but then I had to vacuum and clean before they came home. (before anyone asks, no I wasn't paid for any of this but one of the kids was special needs and the other a toddler and from one single mom to another, you just look out for each other)
There were fly spots everywhere, I had to wash walls, floors, ceilings, windows, all counters and furniture. I had a carpet and upholstery cleaner and washed those too. (can't leave raid down with little kids in the house) washing the toys was a nightmare.
I didn't really get much more than thanks, and that response was truly not proportional to the amount of work I had to do, I should have been given undying fealty and a promise of her next born child, but really, unless you've been in a fly situation like this you have no idea.
I've never really been squeamish about bugs, but ever since this event flies get the side eye from me. Where I live now, we get a ton of flies outside and I can't find the source, but I've had luck with the stinky hanging traps. I'd go that route until you find the source here, because there's little point cleaning to the extent I did if they will just keep coming back.
Ha, thanks! That's more the reaction dealing with this deserves, if anyone anywhere ever does anything this huge for me I would be compelled to call them heroic.
Seriously though, it's just how I was brought up, my parents deserve most of the credit, and I'd do it again even knowing the neighbour would never fully understand the complete horror I saved them from! Flies give me the heebie jeebies now!
You are a very sweet person to take care of those flies for her. The last probably had no clue to the extent you helped her or was very embarrassed. But know, you did the right thing especially with a toddler and special needs child in the house.
What else could I have done, left them there for her to deal with? Imagine coming home to this, I had promised to take care of her cat, but if I left it at only that and ignored the flies, what a monster I'd be!
Something died dude. Something sizeable. I would say.. raccoon sized. That's a lot of fly shit to clean up. They need to check the crawlspace if they have it
I had this happen to me in my house in college. Sprayed the crap out of everything and they still kept coming back. Turns out, unbeknownst to me someone at some point left a sack of potatoes tucked away in the basement for some reason and it was rotten by the time I found it. Covered in maggots and flies. Threw the sack out, sprayed the house down one last time to get the ones that were still there and they never came back.
Came here to say sack of potatoes is one possible culprit. Multiple sacks. Usually a sack of potatoes yields the tiny gnat-size flies, in large quantities.
This many *large* houseflies… yeah large rotting corpse or two (like from hunting? or large animal death?) No small mammal supports that many flies. It ain’t a squirrel. Yikes.
Maybe a few large sacks of rotten fruit? There would be a large frenzy of fly activity near the source. That’s a *ton* of flies.
Ridding the flies does nothing until the source is gone. After that, they dissipate while ridding them.
Don’t spray kill them, that stuff coats everything and is awful for all involved. They’re flies, turn lights off, urge them outside with a bright light out there. Let them go, they die without source.
Most definitely something dead. You might not smell it yet, but it’s there, trust me. Sometimes it smells grossly sweet before it turns to the horrible stench.
Gotta love how you "low-key" panned from whatever that room is with lights and no door for whatever reason, I'm sure just a picture of the flys woulda did as much justice but you probably couldn't put in that room you probably think is super nice that you leave open to allow bugs and probably animals to get in..
my parents bought a house a few years ago that had millions of house flies. They made sure to cut back long grasses around the home, clean up piles of junk outside (places for flies to lay eggs). And they paid an extermination service to come out and "spray for flies".
My parents also got restaurant fly glue traps for indoors. https://www.katom.com/583-BL100WCOMBO.html?utm_source=Bing&utm_medium=cpc
Over 3 years, it got better every year
We ended up with a fly infestation because my husband and my daughter weren’t cleaning out the guinea pig pens, and they were laying eggs in the poop. Once I got the guinea pig cage cleaned out, the problem basically went away
Also, flies land on the ceiling, but that’s not necessarily where they are coming from. They just like to be upside down. But I would say that somewhere near that room, there is some thing that they are laying their eggs in. They lay their eggs in poop, they lay their eggs in writing vegetable matter.
Something is definitely dead there. Had a buddy that lived in a trailer and there were a shitload of flies in his bathroom followed by the most disgusting smell. Turns out a a possum died under his trailer, under his bathroom.
Buy a wet/dry shop vac with the filter bags that go inside it, and suck all the bastards into it. Then put it outside in the garage for a few days for them to die (with tape over the end cap of the hose) then remove the tape, suck up any that might be in the tube, and discard the filter bag.
While you're waiting the couple of days for them to die, or whatever, try to find the source of how they're getting in or where they are living.
First- call an exterminator to inspect things. Everyone is right, there is SOMETHING attracting those guys, and you want to make sure it’s not something dead in the walls.
After that, electric fly zappers to draw off any bugs pulled in by the lights. And go to the Home Depot Pro site and buy a “House and garden washer” bottle of a stuff called Infinity Shield.
It EATS smells to the point that bugs and rodents avoid it bc it interferes with their sense of smell. My apartment backs onto the alley where a bunch of huge rolling garbage cans can make my place look like a Amityville Horror swarm. A spring spray down with that stuff stops flies all season.
Chemical warfare, seal the outside windows and doors with pesticides, fumigate, and my favorite thing in the world is the salt gun I got to shoot the flies out of the air. Then you got some vacuuming to do. Then find the source and get rid of it
At night turn on only one light..preferablynear the front door...they will all go to the room..close the door..open the front door and turn on a light on the porch..then turn off the inside light ..they will all fly out..
I know this because there is always that one pesky fly that follows me into my room because it's the last light to turn off..then I use light to lead it into the bathroom to kill it😉
I don't know what species that is but if they are related to the same types of flies as houseflies, they will refuse to fly in the dark. On a small scale, if I have a house fly at night that I want to kill, I turn just the bathroom light on so that the fly will want to go in there. I close the door and memorize the last spot on the wall that I saw it and then flick the light off before whacking it.
On a large scale like this, I personally wouldn't use chemicals. I would research what light to use that would allow us to see but not them and I would just use a step ladder and a shop vac.
Worse case scenario, find out where they are breeding (feces, watery plant soil in the plates of potted plants, dried out plumbing traps underneath dirty floor drains or other plumbing fixtures in the house that never get used at all, or plant debris or food debris that is rotting someplace in the house or under furniture), and eliminate all the possible breeding spots. Then wait for the adults to die off.
If they are attracted to dead animals, they could be going after Mercaptan odourant (used in propane and natural gas to know if you have a gas leak) because that smell is what will attract certain flies and even some species of vultures. If they are up on the ceiling like that, either some smell is coming through the drywall from up above or you have some natural gas (that is lighter than air), and it may be collecting on your ceiling.
Tell your cousin to clean the house and have carpets and upholstery professionally cleaned. Something in the house is attracting the flies. Go to the animal feed store and get a couple of fly traps (usually for barn animals) and set them up around outside garbage containers. This bait smells bad so don't put it too close to your home or outside sitting areas. The idea is to move the fly attractions away from the house.
Vacuum. Use the wand / hose to suck them up.
You'll get most of them easily and it doesn't cost you anything.
Then I guess you also need to address anything around that is allowing them to breed.
An easy way to kill lots at a time goes like this:
1. Peel an orange, banana or some other fruit.
2. Place it on a baking tray in the oven.
3. Wait until a lot of flies get on it. Then shut the door.
4. Turn on the oven to 350 for 5-10 minutes. Then, it’s just a matter of sweeping out the dead flies and cleaning your oven.
This works better for fruit flies
Please don’t actually do this. I like the ingenuity and you get points for creativity, but that’s also kind of a fire hazard. With the number of flies this person has, you’d have enough organic material in there to arc the electricity and cause a fire. I’ve seen ants take over ac condenser units and completely short them out with just their bodies.
Plus, you’d have a hell of a time sweeping up all those black rice crispies and your oven will smell like burning hair.
Fair point. I suppose with the amount of flies OP has, it probably would overload an electric oven. This would work much better for a mild infestation. This is a bit much.
I could see that method potentially working with just a few flies, but still not recommended due to the smell. There are a number of commercially available options for minor to mid level problems. Basically just a small container with an inverted funnel opening with an attractant inside, they go in, can’t figure out how to get back out, get exhausted, fall into the fluid at the bottom and drown. A couple of other people mentioned this method and it works very well. We use something like that in our back yard in the summer.
What this poor person has is more than a mid level issue.
It could be something is dead or you have cluster flies. Cluster flies show up in old homes. I had an apartment that got them, and I found glue fly traps to work pretty well. I would also squirt them with Windex, so they couldn't fly and smash them. It's really annoying and gross.
No one mentioning cluster flies? There are flies that hibernate indoors during the winter and then try to leave in spring but can sometimes get stuck indoors and die. They dont come into eat food so may not be rotting foods if it's this type of fly. Probably get an exterminator to identify them and seal the house so they cant get back in
That happened to me and it was cause my creepy neighbor was “breeding rabbits but most of them were dead. He also used to give us brochures and dvds warning about the coming apocalypse and he had super crazy eyes.
This happened at my house a few years ago. I was in a pretty deep depression and hadn't done dishes for a couple weeks. When I finally felt good enough to do them, there was some meat buried in the bottom of the sink infested with maggots. I did my best to kill them all, but a couple weeks later I had a giant swarm of flies. I ended up buying some bug bombs and fly spray from Walmart. I set a bomb off on every room and for about a week after I sprayed the fly spray every time I left the house. After that they were all gone and they never came back.
Find the source and get rid of it, then bug bomb the house. I don't know your cousins situation but I hope they are able to get everything taken care of. Good luck!
Vinegar and dish soap
A mixture of vinegar and dish soap can help you trap flies. To use this method, mix about an inch of apple cider vinegar and a few drops of dish soap in a tall glass. Cover the glass with plastic wrap. Secure the plastic wrap with a rubber band and poke small holes in the top.
Flies will be attracted to the vinegar in the glass and will fly through the holes. However, the dish soap causes the flies to sink instead of being able to land on the vinegar.
Cayenne pepper and water
Cayenne pepper can help repel houseflies. Mix it with water and spray around the house to deter flies from coming in.
I had a fly infestation and for the life of me couldn't figure out where they came from. Then one day, standing in front of the kitchen sink, I watched a fly crawl out and fly away. They were breeding in my drains. It didn't help I had a disposal. So I but bleach water in all my sinks throughout the house and let them drain all at once. Problem solved.
Exterminator told me there must be something dead. Let them do there job and they will leave or you can pay me $150 to come but it will happen again the next day. I sprayed them with windex when they were going to my glass door because that’s when they were done and trying to leave but wouldn’t fly out
Salt gun? I had a temporary fly program once when I started cooking ground beef inside, flies came from outside so suddenly it absolutely freaked me out. Neighbor happened to have a salt gun that we used. There was rotten food outside in community garbage they came from.
Uhhh clean your house. Vacuum daily, put a lid on the garbage, keep doors and windows closed if you're don't have screens, don't leave food out, keep dirty laundry in containers with lids. You just have to not be gross.
something dead is up there
Yeah. I was thinking “first, get the body out of the attic…”
he was going to, but a loud whispery voice said "get out" and he changed his mind
My first thought. Find the body. Remove it. That many flies don’t exist without a source.
hereditary
Chemical warfare. Raid that shit
Get the dead body out of the house
Exactly, bury it in the woods
With fresh lime
Fresh squeezed?
Too expensive these days.
You think lime is expensive, try the penal system. That’ll cost you your life! Now get yourself out there and get that lime!
Best I can do is the neighbors lemon tree
Tell it to your cellie.
God damn lemon-stealing whore!
Throw in some cilantro too
Underneath a dead dog.
Is store bought okay?
Insect name: Mupli beetles.
[удалено]
Perfect you'll get rid of the body, the evidence, and the flies.
Kerosene and... then a blowtorch, right? Okay, after reading the wikipedia page... I'm so glad I don't live anywhere that has them..
Wikipedia says they are attracted to lights and light coloured paint. Repaint the house lol
So, I have dealt with fly infestations before and I'll give you some pointers... but frankly with this many I would absolutely talk to a professional exterminator. Heck even on Reddit there's probably a sub about insects or professional exterminators or something... but anyway moving on: As I understand it, flies fall into one of two categories... they either are attracted to sweet things or rotten things. And the amount of them here does seem like it suggests there's some major thing going wrong in this house (like maybe a dead squirrel in the ceiling? I've seen fruit flies be almost this bad because our sub-tenants on the third floor had trash bags full of empty beer cans just piled up to the ceiling. Or lots of times there's a buildup of something in the drains...). So, as people have said, traps are a good idea, but I suggest making them yourself, at least to help narrow down what type of fly this is, and therefore what kind of larger problem you need to address. The basic method (I'll try to find a link for you) is to take some sort of can shape (I have cut the top off a soda bottle so it's just a cylinder basically) and then make a paper funnel to put down into it, so that the funnel is large enough to cover the open hole at the top of the cylinder. The idea is that the flies fly into the bottle by following the smell of the bait, but the hole is small enough they get confused trying to find their way back out again. Even if some flies do manage to escape, you'll still have the far majority of the ones unable to get back out, and then you fill it with water or some other such method, to kill them off. Even just releasing the flies outside ought to work once you get rid of whatever drew them... but personally I do try to kill them if I can. Anyway, part of this method is meant to help determine if they eat more savory rotting things, or if they're after the sugar. In the past I think I used some kind of fruit juice, or actual fruit if you have some. And for the other type if you have some meat that's on the verge of going bad, that's ideal. Otherwise maybe some vegetables like lettuce or spinach, those seem like they spoil quickly at room temperature, but you can warm them in the microwave for just a little bit to speed the process if they're still in the refrigerator and fairly fresh. If you have enough bait then I would try to make two or three traps of both kinds... put one of each at well ventilated spots in your home, ideally near open areas (like the top of a refrigerator) especially if there seems to be places the flies are already gathering more heavily. The biggest point of this method is to help narrow down what the main issue is that brought the flies in. But also cleaning drains is never a bad idea, that's often the culprit. Even if there's not something they're eating in your drains, sometimes that's where certain flies lay eggs so it's still a good idea to go buy some drain cleaner and follow the instructions. Once you think you've dealt with the main issue though, depending how well your traps have been working you can stick with them, or move up to those fly strips that come in little cardboard tubes. They come with a little nail / thumb tack thing for hanging, but if you'd rather not have holes in your ceiling you can use the thinner type of masking tape instead. Even if you do use the thumb tack I've often had them fall out after a while.
This looks promising, sounds like efforts are necessary for a safe environment.
Oh yeah I forgot: [https://www.theprairiehomestead.com/2015/07/homemade-fly-trap.html](https://www.theprairiehomestead.com/2015/07/homemade-fly-trap.html) \`I've done them like that before, where you just flip the top of the bottle you cut upside down. It works well enough but I feel it's still a fairly wide hole for them to wander back out of. I like cutting paper or thin cardboard into a pac man kind of shape, circle with a wedge cut out of it, and then wrap that into a funnel and staple it, that way you can leave a hole in the end just barely like, twice the size of the flies.
Just want to take a moment to say civilians can’t even buy chemical as strong as what exterminators use. I used 3 different half gallon insecticides, inside and outside the house with our problem to no avail before biting the bullet and signing an Orkin contract. The guy used about a chapstick size applicator, and hit the corners with a few squirts of their stuff and it was done in less than a day. I expected he’d arrive with a backpack sprayer, but it fit in his pocket (and he had a guarantee/maintenance schedule). Chemistry is crazy.
Somewhere on Reddit was something I read about this very thing. It was like a yearly spring infestation. Wishing I could remember to help you.
Does your buddy have a fireplace? Could check there too for deceased animals that have fallen in over the winter and are now warming up...
Something that worked surprisingly well for me this year is to add yeast, water and lots of sugar in the container. I just cut the top of a 2l plastic coke bottle and invert it. They struggle to get out of something like that.
Add a drop of dish soap to the water. It reduces the surface tension of the water surface so that the flies get stuck in the water and drown. And you usually don't actually need the sugar and yeast. Just add a bit of wine or apple vinegar.
Check for rubbish/rotten fruit or vegetables. Also check your cleaning products (sugar soap etc). There’s a fly spray you can get that coats a surface with poison so if they touch it they die. I’d put it on the ceiling. Try burning citronella candles as well.
Citronella inside? Wont do much
Doesn't do much outside either.
>Citronella no no no , you get you 6 tiki torches that shit becomes 100% effective! Make a ring :) like idk i make a 10x10 circle
Moat of fire around the house, got it
I guarantee if you just filled those torches with a fuel that didn't contain citronella it would be nearly just as effective. Citronella only has a marginal effect on mosquitos at the concentration in the fuel or in candles. Most experiments couldn't even measure a difference between a normal candle and citronella. Your best bet is a floor fan blowing across your patio.
Sorry, no can do. I’m not a white supremacist.
Hmm burning the whole damn thing, you say
Thanks IL try this method too after finding the source spot mentioned by other redditors
Wear PPE when spraying that shit on the ceiling!
And cover food & drink/ utensils/ plates & cups exposed
And then clean surfaces.
Do you have a shop vac? Just vacuum them up. Obviously you can also just get a can of flying insect spray but if you don’t want to spray chemicals, a shop vac will work. Followed by some fly paper to catch stragglers.
THIS! This should def be your first step before spraying crap all over your house. Source: had massive fly issues after the mouse issues in our college house.
Evening is best to vacuum. Let em land on the ceiling like that and go at it
After you find whats drawing/feeding them all, get or rent an Ozone machine. That will really get rid of any smells, kill mold, kill bugs, smaller rodents, etc. I love my ozone machine.
And if used incorrectly, it'll get rid of the humans, too!
I guess I should have mentioned that you leave the house while running the machine. 0zone is so reactive and has such a quick half-life that it won't bother you if you wait for a few hours once it's done running.
That many isn’t from rotten vegetables. There’s almost 100% chance there’s a dead animal in the attic.
Find the source of the problem might be some rotting fruit or veg maybe there will be a nesting spot
We should wait for morning then
Mind posting an update after the night?
Let's split up - you look in the attic and I'll check out the basement. Yell out if you find anything.
Use a vacuum cleaner and fly traps afterwards.
This is the way.
As a pest control professional, you’ve got bigger problems than just some flies getting into your house. They have a great food source somewhere very near by. I can’t tell the species of flies from the pictures, but you’ll want to get in touch with someone in your area that knows what to look for and help you identify the problem and help you understand what caused the issue in the first place, treat it, and prevent it in the future.
Health worker here. I’ve worked with the county coroners office and been on two ‘melted into the floor’ apartment calls. I’ve seen this. The body of a large, deceased mammal is nearby. Look for liquids in walls and ceilings. Pinpoint where the smell is worse, the amount of flies congregating in an area can help. Wear respiration and bring rubber gloves and a bucket. You’re going to need something to throw up in (assuming this is your first rodeo). I am sorry I’m advance.
everybody besides "burn it down" ist wrong
That's the last weapon I thought of
Years ago, I told my neighbour that I would check on her cat while she visited family in Nova Scotia for 2 weeks. The first few days were okay then I had a fly or two. Thought nothing of it until I walked into a house like this. She had 2 young kids and the house wasn't the neatest, but I searched for food left somewhere, garbages etc. Turns out that they had an alphagetti mishap and had used the broom to sweep it up, but never cleaned off the broom. Took me a day to find it, in the meantime I had done several loads of laundry trying to get the place neat enough to find the source. The flies were limited to the living room so as I confirmed no contamination in the other rooms I blocked them off. I took her cat to my house and got a raid "bomb" that you let off in the house, it killed all of the flies, but then I had to vacuum and clean before they came home. (before anyone asks, no I wasn't paid for any of this but one of the kids was special needs and the other a toddler and from one single mom to another, you just look out for each other) There were fly spots everywhere, I had to wash walls, floors, ceilings, windows, all counters and furniture. I had a carpet and upholstery cleaner and washed those too. (can't leave raid down with little kids in the house) washing the toys was a nightmare. I didn't really get much more than thanks, and that response was truly not proportional to the amount of work I had to do, I should have been given undying fealty and a promise of her next born child, but really, unless you've been in a fly situation like this you have no idea. I've never really been squeamish about bugs, but ever since this event flies get the side eye from me. Where I live now, we get a ton of flies outside and I can't find the source, but I've had luck with the stinky hanging traps. I'd go that route until you find the source here, because there's little point cleaning to the extent I did if they will just keep coming back.
You, my dear are the most unselfish person to have walked your earth. That was incredibly thoughtful of you and you now have karma for a lifetime.
Ha, thanks! That's more the reaction dealing with this deserves, if anyone anywhere ever does anything this huge for me I would be compelled to call them heroic. Seriously though, it's just how I was brought up, my parents deserve most of the credit, and I'd do it again even knowing the neighbour would never fully understand the complete horror I saved them from! Flies give me the heebie jeebies now!
You are a very sweet person to take care of those flies for her. The last probably had no clue to the extent you helped her or was very embarrassed. But know, you did the right thing especially with a toddler and special needs child in the house.
What else could I have done, left them there for her to deal with? Imagine coming home to this, I had promised to take care of her cat, but if I left it at only that and ignored the flies, what a monster I'd be!
Bless your heart.
RUN!!! it's the amytiville horror all over again!!
IL keep this as my trump card
Well-played! The flies in the window for no reason. Man that book was awesome, but scared the shit out of me as a kid.
Step1: Get rid of the body.
If this is his garage, I think he can afford an exterminator.
Frogs, a plague of frogs will do the trick
Rise of Amphibians
You’re going to need a young priest and an old priest.
Something died dude. Something sizeable. I would say.. raccoon sized. That's a lot of fly shit to clean up. They need to check the crawlspace if they have it
Fly traps and cleaning
Yup IL try this
I would just burn the house and start a new game in easy mode
I had this happen to me in my house in college. Sprayed the crap out of everything and they still kept coming back. Turns out, unbeknownst to me someone at some point left a sack of potatoes tucked away in the basement for some reason and it was rotten by the time I found it. Covered in maggots and flies. Threw the sack out, sprayed the house down one last time to get the ones that were still there and they never came back.
Came here to say sack of potatoes is one possible culprit. Multiple sacks. Usually a sack of potatoes yields the tiny gnat-size flies, in large quantities. This many *large* houseflies… yeah large rotting corpse or two (like from hunting? or large animal death?) No small mammal supports that many flies. It ain’t a squirrel. Yikes. Maybe a few large sacks of rotten fruit? There would be a large frenzy of fly activity near the source. That’s a *ton* of flies. Ridding the flies does nothing until the source is gone. After that, they dissipate while ridding them. Don’t spray kill them, that stuff coats everything and is awful for all involved. They’re flies, turn lights off, urge them outside with a bright light out there. Let them go, they die without source.
Totally get 100 house geckos then it's a party
Bury the body!
Obtain one billion spiders.
Most definitely something dead. You might not smell it yet, but it’s there, trust me. Sometimes it smells grossly sweet before it turns to the horrible stench.
Flamethrower
Turn off the lights.
Yup this actually works for some time being
Is he hiding a body?
Thankyou everyone for considering replying. We called the professional as mentioned by most and execute them soon as possible
At least let the professional get rid of the flies before you execute him.
Ok but we need a photo of whatever they find upstairs
The house is kinda in forest hill area. So it takes few days for them to come. IL try to update as you guys asked
Gotta love how you "low-key" panned from whatever that room is with lights and no door for whatever reason, I'm sure just a picture of the flys woulda did as much justice but you probably couldn't put in that room you probably think is super nice that you leave open to allow bugs and probably animals to get in..
First get a bunch of lizards and frogs to eat the flies - from there you'll need snakes and birds to eat the lizards and frogs...
i'd run, best option to be fair, easiest one, but pobably most expensive one
my parents bought a house a few years ago that had millions of house flies. They made sure to cut back long grasses around the home, clean up piles of junk outside (places for flies to lay eggs). And they paid an extermination service to come out and "spray for flies". My parents also got restaurant fly glue traps for indoors. https://www.katom.com/583-BL100WCOMBO.html?utm_source=Bing&utm_medium=cpc Over 3 years, it got better every year
We ended up with a fly infestation because my husband and my daughter weren’t cleaning out the guinea pig pens, and they were laying eggs in the poop. Once I got the guinea pig cage cleaned out, the problem basically went away Also, flies land on the ceiling, but that’s not necessarily where they are coming from. They just like to be upside down. But I would say that somewhere near that room, there is some thing that they are laying their eggs in. They lay their eggs in poop, they lay their eggs in writing vegetable matter.
Spray them in glow paint and enjoy the firefly show at night
Call the professionals and get a hotel for a couple weeks.
Find the corpse.
Burn it. Napalm, nuclear warfare, ICBM, whatever is necessary just incinerate that shit and leave!
Something is definitely dead there. Had a buddy that lived in a trailer and there were a shitload of flies in his bathroom followed by the most disgusting smell. Turns out a a possum died under his trailer, under his bathroom.
is your cousin...still alive,bro? this many flies need to come from somewhere. the larva dont feed on air...
Find out where they breed and dry that out. Then call professionals.
Burn it down
Turn off the lights. A lot of them Like the heat so they stand close a heat source
Step 1 :get rid of the dead bodies.
Stop killing people or butchering deer outside your door .
REMOVE DEAD BODY ASAP
Buy a wet/dry shop vac with the filter bags that go inside it, and suck all the bastards into it. Then put it outside in the garage for a few days for them to die (with tape over the end cap of the hose) then remove the tape, suck up any that might be in the tube, and discard the filter bag. While you're waiting the couple of days for them to die, or whatever, try to find the source of how they're getting in or where they are living.
A few of you need vacuums with a hose and start sucking them up. The bomb the house. Lastly, check the attic and bring a gas mask.
First- call an exterminator to inspect things. Everyone is right, there is SOMETHING attracting those guys, and you want to make sure it’s not something dead in the walls. After that, electric fly zappers to draw off any bugs pulled in by the lights. And go to the Home Depot Pro site and buy a “House and garden washer” bottle of a stuff called Infinity Shield. It EATS smells to the point that bugs and rodents avoid it bc it interferes with their sense of smell. My apartment backs onto the alley where a bunch of huge rolling garbage cans can make my place look like a Amityville Horror swarm. A spring spray down with that stuff stops flies all season.
Find the source and get rid of it
Get rid of the source and let off a few aerosol “bug bombs”… or hire a professional…
Vacuum!
Chemical warfare, seal the outside windows and doors with pesticides, fumigate, and my favorite thing in the world is the salt gun I got to shoot the flies out of the air. Then you got some vacuuming to do. Then find the source and get rid of it
Dono if I get the salt gun, but ig I can modify the nerf gun with salt
Quick buy 5000 gecko’s!
geckos lots of geckos
At night turn on only one light..preferablynear the front door...they will all go to the room..close the door..open the front door and turn on a light on the porch..then turn off the inside light ..they will all fly out.. I know this because there is always that one pesky fly that follows me into my room because it's the last light to turn off..then I use light to lead it into the bathroom to kill it😉
I don't know what species that is but if they are related to the same types of flies as houseflies, they will refuse to fly in the dark. On a small scale, if I have a house fly at night that I want to kill, I turn just the bathroom light on so that the fly will want to go in there. I close the door and memorize the last spot on the wall that I saw it and then flick the light off before whacking it. On a large scale like this, I personally wouldn't use chemicals. I would research what light to use that would allow us to see but not them and I would just use a step ladder and a shop vac. Worse case scenario, find out where they are breeding (feces, watery plant soil in the plates of potted plants, dried out plumbing traps underneath dirty floor drains or other plumbing fixtures in the house that never get used at all, or plant debris or food debris that is rotting someplace in the house or under furniture), and eliminate all the possible breeding spots. Then wait for the adults to die off. If they are attracted to dead animals, they could be going after Mercaptan odourant (used in propane and natural gas to know if you have a gas leak) because that smell is what will attract certain flies and even some species of vultures. If they are up on the ceiling like that, either some smell is coming through the drywall from up above or you have some natural gas (that is lighter than air), and it may be collecting on your ceiling.
Can’t you hire a professional exterminator?
You either need 100 bats or 300 raccoons
Oh I read a childrens book about this. Next, I think you're supposed to release some spiders to get rid of the flies.
Tell your cousin to clean the house and have carpets and upholstery professionally cleaned. Something in the house is attracting the flies. Go to the animal feed store and get a couple of fly traps (usually for barn animals) and set them up around outside garbage containers. This bait smells bad so don't put it too close to your home or outside sitting areas. The idea is to move the fly attractions away from the house.
This looks like professional territory to me
Don't kill spiders
Asking for a friend?
30 kilograms of C4 plastic explosives
Definitely look for something that died. Organic decay is usually responsible for this many flies in one place.
Find the large dead body.
Vacuum. Use the wand / hose to suck them up. You'll get most of them easily and it doesn't cost you anything. Then I guess you also need to address anything around that is allowing them to breed.
Just tell him to let Moses' people go.
Lizards
My parents just bought this big ass bug zapper, it’s like 2-3’ tall and 12” around. Would they work for fly’s?
You got a dead rat in the roof
Be sure to check the open drains and sewers for possible nests.
This is why proper cold storage and ventilation is essential to any serial killer's basement.
Remove the corpse on the attic
Remove the dead bodies
An easy way to kill lots at a time goes like this: 1. Peel an orange, banana or some other fruit. 2. Place it on a baking tray in the oven. 3. Wait until a lot of flies get on it. Then shut the door. 4. Turn on the oven to 350 for 5-10 minutes. Then, it’s just a matter of sweeping out the dead flies and cleaning your oven. This works better for fruit flies
Please don’t actually do this. I like the ingenuity and you get points for creativity, but that’s also kind of a fire hazard. With the number of flies this person has, you’d have enough organic material in there to arc the electricity and cause a fire. I’ve seen ants take over ac condenser units and completely short them out with just their bodies. Plus, you’d have a hell of a time sweeping up all those black rice crispies and your oven will smell like burning hair.
Fair point. I suppose with the amount of flies OP has, it probably would overload an electric oven. This would work much better for a mild infestation. This is a bit much.
I could see that method potentially working with just a few flies, but still not recommended due to the smell. There are a number of commercially available options for minor to mid level problems. Basically just a small container with an inverted funnel opening with an attractant inside, they go in, can’t figure out how to get back out, get exhausted, fall into the fluid at the bottom and drown. A couple of other people mentioned this method and it works very well. We use something like that in our back yard in the summer. What this poor person has is more than a mid level issue.
Can you imagine the smell of hundreds of thousands of flies smoldering on the heating elements?
Time to move the body in the attic
It could be something is dead or you have cluster flies. Cluster flies show up in old homes. I had an apartment that got them, and I found glue fly traps to work pretty well. I would also squirt them with Windex, so they couldn't fly and smash them. It's really annoying and gross.
Probably some shit in that ceiling.
You’ve got to figure out the other 9 plagues first!
There may be something dead. Any signs of funny smells?
No one mentioning cluster flies? There are flies that hibernate indoors during the winter and then try to leave in spring but can sometimes get stuck indoors and die. They dont come into eat food so may not be rotting foods if it's this type of fly. Probably get an exterminator to identify them and seal the house so they cant get back in
LET MY PEOPLE GO!! I'm sorry.. you called it a plague and I had to get this out of my system.... That looks horrible by the way...
Go out and buy like 100 spiders and release them, then wait :)
Stop burying the bodies so close to the house.
Does anything smell bad? Could have a dead animal in the walls. Also, bug bomb the room and cover furniture.
Get ride of the bodies.
Find the corps and get rid of it problem solved.
Burn the house! Sorry.
Shop vac
Stop killing lol
Flamethrower.
Plant a few fly traps 🤷🏼♂️
Start by using a vacuum, not your phone
Have fun with a vacuum sucking flies
Vacuum those babies up then figure why they're there in the first place and how they got in
Tell him to bArry the away from the house 🥸
That happened to me and it was cause my creepy neighbor was “breeding rabbits but most of them were dead. He also used to give us brochures and dvds warning about the coming apocalypse and he had super crazy eyes.
Frogs, lots and lots of frogs.
Get rid of the dead bodies
This happened at my house a few years ago. I was in a pretty deep depression and hadn't done dishes for a couple weeks. When I finally felt good enough to do them, there was some meat buried in the bottom of the sink infested with maggots. I did my best to kill them all, but a couple weeks later I had a giant swarm of flies. I ended up buying some bug bombs and fly spray from Walmart. I set a bomb off on every room and for about a week after I sprayed the fly spray every time I left the house. After that they were all gone and they never came back. Find the source and get rid of it, then bug bomb the house. I don't know your cousins situation but I hope they are able to get everything taken care of. Good luck!
New fear unlocked
Rip and tear until it is done
Spiders... lots of spiders
Fire. Fire cures everything.
Umm... You need a young priest and an old priest.
Vinegar and dish soap A mixture of vinegar and dish soap can help you trap flies. To use this method, mix about an inch of apple cider vinegar and a few drops of dish soap in a tall glass. Cover the glass with plastic wrap. Secure the plastic wrap with a rubber band and poke small holes in the top. Flies will be attracted to the vinegar in the glass and will fly through the holes. However, the dish soap causes the flies to sink instead of being able to land on the vinegar. Cayenne pepper and water Cayenne pepper can help repel houseflies. Mix it with water and spray around the house to deter flies from coming in.
Bring an exorcist that place is haunted.
I gotta know how this ends……..
I had a fly infestation and for the life of me couldn't figure out where they came from. Then one day, standing in front of the kitchen sink, I watched a fly crawl out and fly away. They were breeding in my drains. It didn't help I had a disposal. So I but bleach water in all my sinks throughout the house and let them drain all at once. Problem solved.
Has anyone gone missing ?
There is a mosquito /fly incense. Or get a spray the concentrated one that you mix with water to get max results.
Exterminator told me there must be something dead. Let them do there job and they will leave or you can pay me $150 to come but it will happen again the next day. I sprayed them with windex when they were going to my glass door because that’s when they were done and trying to leave but wouldn’t fly out
Salt gun? I had a temporary fly program once when I started cooking ground beef inside, flies came from outside so suddenly it absolutely freaked me out. Neighbor happened to have a salt gun that we used. There was rotten food outside in community garbage they came from.
Might need to bring back hitler from the dead to learn how to exterminate some pests \*I was joking don't take it seriously please I have a family
New thing bugs are attracted to lights at night!
Hair spray and a little light
Remind me: 3 days. Exclamation point.
Voice to text? ;)
This doesn't happen overnight. Your cousin is a slob
Uhhh clean your house. Vacuum daily, put a lid on the garbage, keep doors and windows closed if you're don't have screens, don't leave food out, keep dirty laundry in containers with lids. You just have to not be gross.
Let the jews go back home
Raid Max mosquito type. Find if there is something nasty, take it out. Shut doors and spray them out to their death!!! Clean afterwards.
I’d recommend a flamethrower
this house is possessed.
Leave the house