I have sooo many flies in my house this year! I have tried everything I know of to get rid of them short of chemicals to no avail. I made my own traps with jars with about an inch of agave nectar in the bottom, but they got out. I used a fan near the doorway, they still got in. This past Saturday my DS looked like a lunatic swinging a broom around trying to swat them. I put up some fly tape for the windows and I have caught over 90 flies in it SINCE SATURDAY EVENING -its only Tuesday!!! And the real kicker is that there are still flies flying around my house. So I had the horrible disgusting thought that they must be breeding somewhere in my house. But everything is clean - the trash is taken out daily, cat litter box cleaned daily, lizard terrarium cleaned weekly. I still took the extra effort to clean, wash and sterilize everything I could think would attract the pests thoroughly. Where oh where are the coming from??? Does anyone have any ideas where else I should look to see if I do have some disgusting infestation from indoors? Does anyone know better remedies to get rid of them?? I have kids and pets so I want to avoid chemicals.
Stupid, stupid flies!
These are just your common every day house fly? Or perhaps a fruit fly?
You might try pouring bleach down all your drains, including the floor drain in your basement (if you have one). Sometimes flies collect in the damp areas like that and breed. They’re a pain to get rid of when they do. I’d start bleaching drains daily for a while and see if that helps.
We had a “bloom” of flies about a month ago…but they subsided after about a week. I dunno what causes it. They came in from outside…because when we started leaving all unscreened doors and windows CLOSED…we didnt’ get any new live ones.
Naturally, I was on major ‘fly patrol’…with my trusty yellow plastic fly swatter.
To get them…if and when they land…you have to ‘see’ yourself getting it SMACK DOWN. “See it…get it!” It always works.
Visualize the kill…and you will succeed.
My goodness…did I just say that??? 
I was going to say, I find the fly-swatter most satisfying! Esp. those electric ones!
Can you maybe check the attic or basement for a passed away critter? I know it sounds gross, but sometimes it happens.
I also have heard of bags of water hung from doorways and windows, whatever entry points. They should be hung where the light shines in. It has something to do with the fllies not liking it because of the light refracted off of them and their funky eyes. I have friends that swear by this and use them in their horse stables and on front porches.
Yup I am the fly killer in my home. They are disgusting things but me and my pink swatter are pretty good at getting them.
I did have a some fruit flies now they were everywhere. I went on line and found out how to get them. Put some apple cider in a small jar and cover it with plastic wrap. Then poke some holes in it. I used size two knitting needle. Worked great I could not believe that it worked. Also bleach doesn’t work down the drain boiling water is what they said would work the best. Within a couple of days I was cleared of any flies.
I don’t know if it will work for regular house flies or not but it sure does work for fruit flies.
:waving:
Ugh…We are currently having a problem with fruit flies. I first noticed them about 2 weeks ago and had no idea where they were coming from.
There were a ton of them hovering around the trash can so I of course, took out the trash, sprayed a disinfectant/deodorizer in the trash can, and mopped the floor paying special attention to the area the trash can is in. That didn’t help. I was going crazy trying to figure out where they were coming from until one day I noticed a TON of them in our front room (that room doesn’t get used much since our couch and TV are in the family room in the back of the house).
I finally tracked them down to a table we have in the front room that has a sort enclosed of shelf under it. The kids use that table when they play and they have a lot of drawing paper in that shelf. I couldn’t figure out why on earth that table would be attracting the flies because we never take food in that room. I went through the shelf anyway and found, behind all the papers and crayons, my son had gotten into a bag of frozen fruit that was in the freezer, and, instead of throwing the bag in the trash, he stuffed it in that table :hair:
Well, that was it, that was what was attracting them. By that time, however, there were so many fruit flies that I didn’t even want to cook because of all the stupid little flies hovering about. I talked to my mom to see if she knew of anything that would get rid of them and she looked online and found that mixing apple cider vinegar with a little bit of water in a jar attracts the flies, and, adding dishsoap to it makes it impossible for the flies to escape the jar. Well, I don’t have any apple cider vinegar, so she kept looking. Eventually she found that fruit flies are also attracted to beer. I did have that! :teehee: I opened a can of beer, poured a little in a few jars, added a bit of dishsoap and bam, in 2 days over 50 of those suckers were gone. There are still a few here and there but not nearly as many as there were! I need to put some more beer in the jars, but, I’m down to my good beer (Blue Moon and Sunshine Wheat…lol) and I really don’t want to waste my last 2 good beers on fruit flies! :teehee:
If it’s house flies you have, I’m not sure if the beer will work. I have read, however, flies don’t like the smell of cloves and adding cloves to an apple or orange will deter them.
Love that! I’ve figured out that it’s near impossible to swat a stationary fly unless you sneak up [I]behind[/I] them – otherwise they’ll spot you and they’re gone.
And this thread reminded me of the last time I visited my mom about a week ago; she had a few flies in the house and she told me my sister (who also lives in the house) THREW AWAY my mom’s perfectly good flyswatter!!
According to my mom, she said something like, “What do you need a flyswatter for, anyway?” :gah:
I have flies every summer as I don’t have screen doors. I leave the doors open during nice weather so I don’t have to let the dogs in and out. I found that flies of all sorts as well as wasps and hornets congregate on my windows. I go around with my vacuum hose and suck them all up every day after closing the doors for the day. It takes care of about 98% of them and then I cook dinner.
I’m waiting until after killing frost to wash the insides of my windows as fly spit will continue to accumulate until then.
Common every day house flies. :ick:
Thanks! This is a great idea. I didn’t even think of the drains :doh:
I live in California so no basement.
:roflhard:
I have to admit I am not a fly swatter. My DBF and DS are though 
There were just too many of them recently to be affective!
I don’t have an attic or a basement (In California we don’t have basements. I think it has to do with the earthquake code) I did check around the screens that lead under the house for any tell tale odor and didn’t detect anything. I live hear Chatsworth, which is big time horse country so flies are usually bothersome in the summer, but this year they’ve been bad!!! Funny thing is it hasn’t even been that hot really. Maybe during our last super hot years they were too tired to be bothersome :roflhard:
I did read about the water bags and I even talked to some people who put water bags up. I currently have no place to hang a water bag from. I will have to have my DS climb up and put a hook on our porch so I can attach a bag.
Thanks - I did poke some holes in a couple of jar lids and put about a half inch of agave nectar in the jar. I caught a total of 3 in those jars. I caught more but they all got back out :hair:
I’ll have to try this! I never heard about cloves!
Thanks everyone for your help. I really hope I can get this fly problem under control. Unfortunately, being in SOuthern California means that we won’t get our “cold” weather (if you can call it that) until the end of October. We should be getting the dreaded Santa Ana winds soon though - maybe they will blow the flies away!!! Crossed Fingers 
When DD was little, she had picked some muscadines and brought them in the house. I kept seeing these big flies. Guess what? They must have laid eggs on the muscadines. Gross!!
Yeah, I was just about to say, did you check the kids’ coat pockets for leftover/saved fruit, cookies, etc? Check the yard, too, just outside the door/windows with the problem. Is the neighbor’s dog/cat using the “facilities” right outside your door? (We had a neighbor who’s dog did!) Check your trash, too! Make sure any meat bones, leftovers, etc., are tightly wrapped before disposal.
Well my kids are 18 and moved out and 16 so I certainly hope they’ve gotten over putting fruit/cookies/candy in their pockets :roflhard: We do have a lot of stray cats in the neighborhood. I planted lavender around the periphery of the yard because I was told they don’t really like it and we have timed sprinklers that kinda keep the cats away. I do run into the occasional bomb in my yard, but it hasn’t been bad. I did think of them when we first started getting such awful flies. I heard cayenne pepper keeps cats away from yards, but I also heard it might hurt the cats so I stay away from that. But I also heard there is some stuff that smells like the urine of predators that is completely organic and doesn’t hurt the cats I can use. I will have to check online to see what it might be.
One thing to remember is that if a female fly is full of eggs, when you kill them, the ones most ripe will hatch into magots if not destroyed quickly enough, they hatch inside the dead mothers body and grow on the food provided. I was always told to burn them, and have no problem when i remember to do that. the kids do not always remember
AND we love the bug swatter that is electric
snap crackle POP
flies, mosquitoes, its great
ecb
Ewwwww! That is just too gross to even think about. I have too many to burn though and I don’t honestly think I can do it!
I literally have over 100 flies on the fly tape now and still have live flies flying around inside. I’ve swatted a few of them, but I just can’t keep up. There is no food lying around anywhere. I don’t eat meat so there is definitely no meat lying around or in the trash. I put boiling water and baking soda down all the drains and I’m going to get shake away (which is an organic cat repellent made to smell like coyote urine to them) to keep he cats outside from the getting into the yard. I just hope the weather gets just a bit cooler to keep these pests at bay! I have no real hope for that for at least a month though :sad:
We got a compost bin recently as our local council has decided to only empty the bins once a fortnight. They are trialing collecting food waste in a small bin once a week, but we gave up on it as the meat waste got maggots in it and it was disgusting. We put vegetable waste and other biodegradable stuff that doesn’t attract rats in the compost bin.
Since then we’ve had loads of flies, mostly fruit flies. I put loads of garden clippings in on Sat and it seems to have cut off their food supply and my dad has been catching house spiders and putting them in the compost bin too. My dad has been sucking them up the vacuum cleaner as there were loads of them in the kitchen.
I found out today 1/2 cup of ammonia is supposed to get rid of fruit flies (which I’m still battling). Let it sit in all your drains for at least 2 hours. Might help w/the house flies…