Does anyone know if you can flyproof a house? I built a house in northern New Mexico and the homeowner has an inordinate number of flies. The house is adobe, radiant concrete floor, with a spray foam/stucco exterior, steel roof with perforated vinyl soffits, all windows screened. Any suggestions ?
Thanks, Billybob
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I have seen people use a combination of white thread, stretched out fiber fill and cotton balls across the top of the doorway (simulate spider web?) that kept flies from coming in.
If you discover a fly in the evening, just turn off all the lights in the house and turn on just the bathroom light. The fly will go to the small lighted room where you can easily swat it.
Other people also use Shaklee's Basic H soap and spray it on their dogs, poop and ground.
Other people also use Shaklee's Basic H soap and spray it on their dogs, poop and ground...
If they are pooping on the ground maybe that's the source of the flies?
;)
PaulB
http://www.makeabettertomorrow.com
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The owner does have a big dog...
Good ole fly paper
git rid of the buffalo herd or horses (cousin's fly problem went away when he went to all corn farming and got rid of the hogs)
Air conditioner vents?? Have noticed that the flies in the summer congregate right outside my basement door (where it is cooler)
Also, unheated cabin - when we go in the winter there are a few flies on the window sills, if we start the heat before sweeping up the flies, they 'come alive' when the heat is back on.
Edited 11/19/2008 10:54 am ET by junkhound
Are they using/have they used any kind of poison to kill pests ?
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No, they don't want any pesticides. An eco-friendly approach would suit them.
There's some good ideas there. I live just outside Phoenix, and we get flies in the late summer/early fall for 2-3 weeks. We haven't had much luck "fly-proofing", aside from changing our habits. The house is already tight, screened, etc.
They tend to hang out at the front door in the shade of the entry to get out of the heat, so when the flies come we use the garage to enter mostly. I'll hang fly strips in the garage to kill any trapped when the house door and big door are shut.
We still get some in the slider from letting the dog in/out, so we just keep swatters on hand(and often in-hand).
It's still 10 times better than the ladybug invasions in northern NJ, in an old house.
There is an entry door on the north side, shaded by a porch roof, and they have the option of entering from the garage...
How about some of those sticky strips of tape-like stuff ??? You could put one up in each hall, bedroom, bathroom and two or three in the kitchen...what do you think?
A local hospital was caught in the same dilemma that you find yourself in and it was in the newspaper. Two surgeons and a complete OR staff were all in the middle of a heart valve operation when one of the staff saw a fly buzzing around the room. The head doctor demanded that fly be caught and removed from the room.
If flys can get into an operating room they can get into anywhere.
Edited 11/19/2008 6:43 pm by woodway
Yeah, fly paper. The owner has tried that, but we are talking hundreds of flies here, if not thousands.
You are talking about cluster flies, and short of chemicals, there is nothing other than a daily vacumn to get rid of the dead ones. They establish nests in walls and keep hatching out. The adobe probably gives them extra places to live. Heck, it probably had nests or larvae in the mud when the bricks were mixed.
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Even with both sides of the walls platered ?
Yes, they can find or make the gaps to crawl out of.
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
Sorry, that was plastered !
if they are cluster flies they have laid their eggs in the soil around the house....
treat the soil with boric acid...
often....
vacuum the live flies and corpses every day....
won't take more than several years to gain on 'em....
BTW...
the larve of the cluster flies feed on all kinds of plant root destroying insects....
and that's a yes to the platered/plastered walls...
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming<!----><!----><!---->
WOW!!! What a Ride!Forget the primal scream, just ROAR!!!
Howdy. it's good to see that you survived the latest pogrom here.
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
howdy to you too....
for the moment I did....
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming<!----><!----><!---->
WOW!!! What a Ride!Forget the primal scream, just ROAR!!!
You're close IMERC, but they don't feed on root destroying insects, but rather on Earthworms.
Check here for info on controlling them:
http://www.pmra-arla.gc.ca/english/pdf/pnotes/cluster-e.pdf
If you have cluster flies in your hose that means it isn't that tight. If the flies can get in, a draft can get through too. I only have them in our bedroom where they come in around the chimney from the attic.
I used to get them in our bathroom, but some caulking around the window fixed the problem.
My house is pretty tight except for the roof being vented. I believe they are crawling in the sofit vents, up the roof into the attic, thru over 16" of fg to the can lights and then do their best to get back out thru the glass. I say this knowing that I have vac'ed the attic. There were 1000's of them.
Hind sight says we should have bug screened the sofits prior to the vent.
It amazes me how small a crack they need to sneak through.
I have shrink plastic (same stuff we put on our windows in the winter) over our attic hatch. The hatch looks tight without any visible spaces, but I have to take the plastic down a couple of times a year to clean all of the dead flies that accumulate in it.
A.
I read in one of the state had outs on them that they fed on other inscect larve..
worms are difficult to find here at altitude...
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming<!----><!----><!---->
WOW!!! What a Ride!Forget the primal scream, just ROAR!!!
Well if you don't have worms, then they certainly must be eating something else in the soil.
I guess its not only building practices that vary by region.
A.
LOL, sounds like the flies don't read all the same books that you do, eh?
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They're too busy buzzing loudly around the light,running into things and landing on me to read much.
Now, if they would all sit nicely in a row on the head board and read along with me I'd actually have more patience for them and less likely to beat them with my rolled up magazine.
A.
cordless vac....
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming<!----><!----><!---->
WOW!!! What a Ride!Forget the primal scream, just ROAR!!!
pesky flies....
don't they know what protocol is all about???
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming<!----><!----><!---->
WOW!!! What a Ride!Forget the primal scream, just ROAR!!!
we gots worms....
very small ones and few and far between....
bur cluster flies.... baaillions.... more like gazillions....
so they gotta be munching on something....
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming<!----><!----><!---->
WOW!!! What a Ride!Forget the primal scream, just ROAR!!!
I've been having problems with insects too...in my computer.
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BruceT
How long has the house been occupied? What type/kind of flies are they. The point I'm trying to make is the problem could be that there is something dead (like a mouse) and is serving as a nursery for the flies. This type of fly is bigger than the typical house fly. If so, they will diminish in time as their source deteriorates. I had this happen to me, and it did not take long before they stopped showing up.
Just over a year, and they had lots of flies last fall too.
Isn't that the first signs of a haunted place?
That's a whole 'nother subject with this owner...
If the flys are coming in through open doors or windows, I've seen resturants tack up a clear quart zip lock bag full of water on the top of the door.
Supposedly it makes the flys think that the opening is a water fall or something like that and they won't enter. Never tried it myself but I've seen it in a lot of resturants along the Oregon coast.
Ott
"...it makes the flys think that the opening is a water fall or something..."Flies think?BruceT