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

NEH

catye wrote: »

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!!

I was thnking of taking out shares We don't have much money at the moment so we were having to allocate money from our food budget to be able to afford it :eek: We did think once if we got posh fly spray it might help but it didn't. We ended up spraying every other day to keep the population down...

Fire_Fox

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:)

Some letting agents will come out with all sorts of illegal rubbish verbally that they would not dare say in writing. Under the Landlord-Tenant Act 1987 you are definitely entitled to an address for the landlord, but only if you request it in writing. See here
http://www.landlordzone.co.uk/landlord%27s_address.htm
A landlord can delegate much of the day to day organisation to a letting agency but he cannot delegate ultimate liability. The letting agents work on his behalf, their failings are his failings, you have no contract with them so you can bypass them if you so choose.

Geenie

catye wrote: »

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?!

Unfortunately not lol! Flies are a part of life unfortunately. I know from older generations in our village, they dealt with them on a yearly basis and were not so squeamish about them as I and you are. I detest them, but live out in the country where they are unfortunately part of the wild life.

I have had those sticky papers hanging from the ceiling.....which are quite effective if not attractive, and the electric things which fry them on contact. I try to avoid any sort of sprays, as I assume that if they can kill a fly instantly, they are not a good thing to be breathing in or have around children on a daily basis. I wouldn't even have Rentokill in to spray frames if I was living in the place, as chemicals are not my thing.....but others are quite happy to have this to avoid the flies.

Weigh all of this up and see if you want to persue your LL. Flies are a pest and we all know what they like to rest/feed on......but just think every time you grab hold of the rail on an escalator in say your local M&S.......and how many hands have been on that......and not washed after a visit to the loo. I am shocked every time I visit a public toilet how few wash their hands afterwards....

Debt_Free_Chick

I sympathise. I've been plagued by swarms of over-wintering cluster flies for the past 6 weeks or so. They'll be gone soon, though....

catye

Hi all,

sorry it's taken me a while with the update - but better late then never:D

Well we eventually got rid of the flies whoo!!:T So this post might be useful to anyone with similar problems.

It turned out that there was a thick layer of fat in the pipes below the KITCHEN sink due to the previous tenants pouring fat that they used in their cooking straight down the drains:eek: - nice!

Strangely, though, we never had a problem with flies in the kitchen, but the LL's plumber husband said they must have been travelling straight up the pipes to the bathroom.

It has taken cleaning those pipes PLUS 3 lots of caustic soda flushed (1 every couple of weeks) down the drains in the kitchen and bathroom (after bleach every day for 10 days didn't do a thing!) to eventually get rid of the flies! What a relief:beer: