Grrr I hate flies!! Bit of a rant....any suggestions welcome

catye

Hi everyone,

I live with my husband in a rented house & over the couple of months we have had a problem with tiny black flies in the bathroom that's been gradually getting worse.

We have tried absolutely everything we can think of to find out where they are coming from & get rid of them!!

We have always regularly cleaned the bathroom so there's definitely nothing lying around that shouldn't be! We have ruled everything out that we could think of eg. we don't have plants, we thoroughly cleaned & plugged up the drains to check if they were coming from there but they weren't, we also sealed up every little crack in the beading on the floor etc. etc.

So we have narrowed it down to 2 theories -
1. they are either coming through the window (it is double-glazed but I've always thought I could hear more from outside than through the others if you know what I mean! so there could be a gap maybe)
2. they are possibly coming through the outside wall where the waste pipe leads outside.

Since I have been spraying around the window & bottom of the loo with fly spray the flies have been turning up dead all over the window & sill, all around the loo & even in the bottom of my shower!! I can't even estimate a number there are so many & seem to increase every day!! I am getting obsessed with cleaning the bathroom, I have to do it every single day it's awful!

Anyway, I know that we have now done all we can to try to sort this out so here is my problem:

We 1st contacted the EA about 3 wks ago, as we have to go through them to get to the LL. They are really rubbish at getting back to us so we have made numerous phone calls over the last few wks & they say the LL was supposed to contact us directly - which they haven't! So we got back on to the EA telling them this really needs sorting & today they have told us that they have been unable to get in touch with the LL so are sending them a letter explaining the situation.

We are soooo fed-up with this now - it's difficult to even take a shower or use the toilet in our own home! I have a good mind to just phone environmental health & get it sorted & send the bill straight to the EA! What do you think?

safesound

It sounds like filter fly. A couple of ideas, remove and clean the ubend on the shower and bathroom sink even if you are convinced it isnt the source (lovely job, eww!) and also check if theres a source of standing water in the space above the bathroom (poss old header tank if theres a loft).

Geenie

Hi catye

I have vast experience with flies. Here where I live in Devon they are an annual pest out in the country. They get in the window frames and hibernate in them over winter, then when you open the windows in spring, clouds of the blighters come falling out........I have a vacuuum cleaner on full throttle to suck the little lovelies up! I now know that opening the windows on really cold frosty mornings in winter kills them off and prevents this fly hell in the warm weather.

That said, I have properties as a LL where the tenants are not so robust to ways of the country, so I have Rentokill go round and spray the window frames and other areas where they accumulate a couple of times a year.

LA's that blame LL's for lack of action are not very promising, as each blames the other for not getting things done while they sit sit on their ars*e. Find another property would be my advice.

tbs624

Likely to be c luster flies - have a look at your local Council's webpages on pest control and as the previous poster says make good use of your vaccum cleaner, switched to high..

catye

Safesound - we do have a tank in the loft so I will look into that thanks.

Geenie - we did clean all around & inside the window frames but they are still coming from somewhere en mass! Also it was still pretty cold when they started appearing so I'm not sure about that. You are completely right about the LA & LL, we can never get anything sorted with them & we are good tenants. I am looking for another property but don't really want to move because it's a great area & we really like the house apart from the fly problem, but I'm starting to think there's no other choice! You don't rent out any houses up north do you lol?!

tbs624 - I get the vacuum out every single day I'm surprised it's still in working order it's been that well used lol! Since I started spraying fly spray around the window frame & around the waste pipes the majority of the flies have been turning up dead so I have the nice job of getting rid of absolutely lods of dead flies everyday now!

I have checked out the council website & I can arrange for someone from environmental health to come out, can anyone advise where I stand here? In my opinion we have done everything we can to solve the problem, surely it is now up to the LL/LA to get it sorted - isn't that supposed to be an advantage of renting? But I really can't wait much longer for them to stop messing around! Should I just call out envirnomental health & forward the invoice to the LA? What would you do?

Thanks again very much for the replies :beer:

JanCee

If I were you I would get enviromental health out and get them to submit a quote to solve the problem. Then forward the quote to the LA and the LL for authorisation. Give them a timescale of 14 days to either authorise the work or give a valid reason for not agreeing.

Fire_Fox

The person responsible for your health and safety is the landlord not the letting agent, Shelter recommends all problems with a rental property are reported in writing. You do not have to go through the letting agency if they are not taking action - you are legally entitled to an address in this country at which to serve notices on the landlord and equally entitled to use it. I think you are jumping the gun dragging in Environmental Health, there is no evidence that this infestation is harmful (appreciate is is very unpleasant) and you have no proper evidence of reporting the issue to the landlord.

NEH

We had exactly the same problem when we moved in, we were going through a can of fly spray a week! :eek:

They died out over the winter but i think they will come back in Summer. I posted on here but people weren't sure what they were so I will read this thread with interest as it's exactly the same...

They aren't harmful I don't think, only annoying so environmental health probably won't be interested...

catye

JanCee - sounds like a good idea, thanks.

Fire Fox - I will definitely put it in writing then. The LA have told us that the LL has an agreement with them where they have no direct contact with tenants. The LA have so far said they can not give us any details to contact the LL directly as 'everything has to go through them'.

The reason I mention environmental health is simply that they have the specific pest control department who could hopefully get rid of the problem quickly. Thanks for the info about the address, that's really useful to know:)

catye

NEH - we are the same with all the fly spray!! It seems a bit strange that they first appeared when the weather was still pretty cold here.... in fact it's only a little bit warmer now really!

If I find out where they are definitely coming from I'll let you know!!

NEH

catye wrote: »

JanCee - sounds like a good idea, thanks.

Fire Fox - I will definitely put it in writing then. The LA have told us that the LL has an agreement with them where they have no direct contact with tenants. The LA have so far said they can not give us any details to contact the LL directly as 'everything has to go through them'.

The reason I mention environmental health is simply that they have the specific pest control department who could hopefully get rid of the problem quickly. Thanks for the info about the address, that's really useful to know:)

If you get any success let me know, our carpet outside the bathroom used to get littered with them as well the window outside our bathroom. I know with us we don't have a window in the bathroom so at least I know that is not the problem.

Our carpet goes from beige to dark coloured with all the dead bodies...:eek: