bluebottle flies

tali

for some inexplicable reason bluebottle flies have started to congregate on my bathroom window- i have not added or done anything there.
i did have the garden slabbed -but how could that cause fly infestation
also oddly , the flies dont buzz around like usual and sit very still on window and are surprisingly well behaved
any ideas?
cheers(dont tell me to buzz off

manhattan

Looks like they are taking in the sunshine! and recharging!

Do not attempt this, it is dangerous but i once used boiling water and chucked it over a swarm of flies that settled near our house and it killed them instantly!

I did have to do it again a few minutes after though as some more arrived! That got rid of them.

coolagarry

Not to be gruesome but bluebottles tend to congregate around dead meat... check that there is not a dead bird or something which is attracting them ??

mirrorimage0

yeah generrally tends to be around something that is dead we had a problem with flys when we moved into our new place, there was a dead rat in garage which obviously we didnt know about for a bit, i would spray them with hairspray then hoover them up, works a treat.

marleyboy

If theres any pungent aroma's eminating from the bathroom, for gods sake dont open the bath panel, let the police do it or you might find yourself disturbing the crime scene (joke)

benood

They sound more like cluster flies to me, slightly smaller than bluebottles and only live for 24 hrs or so - so lots of dead ones on window cills as you describe - they are very lethargic. They come into the house in the autumn to hibernate and leave in the spring to lay eggs in the ground - earthworms have something to do with their life cycle so they're more common in the country than the city.

You could get pest control to let of smoke bombs to kill the ones in the house but you're liable to need to have a crack at them several times before the numbers really reduce. For more info do a google search.

Moneymaker

Ugh, we had a swarm of flies in our living room. Eventually traced the source to a maggot-filled mouse under the sofa.

tali

rat in bath theory is intresting as rats were indeed getting thru the bath- it was their main access ponit but there is no smell in the bathroom at all -a decomposing rat would stink place out surely ?

Murdina

we were literally plagued with flies in conservatory - friend pointed out that there were sufficient for them to feed on each other (house was like that when we bought it I hasten to add). I found there were loads of them inside the gap between window and wall when I opened the windows and spend ages cleaning them all out but every year they came back and same cycle started.
Re dead rat we had dead mouse once thanks to cats under a piece of furniture and the smell was a sweet sickly one not overly strong or unpleasant.

tali

thanks, but no smell at all of any type

marleyboy

An old wives tip I'm afraid, but supposed to work... Try wiping the cill with white vinigar, flies hate it apparently and wont land there. Dont know how effective it is as this was passed on to me.