How do I get rid of flies?

There's a type of fly which hatches out in the walls of old houses. We call them cluster flies. They breed outside, then come into the walls of old houses to rest and change there from larva to fly.Then they appear in large numbers in the house, very dopey, cause mayhem then disappear.
Could be those, MoBrown.
If so there's not much you can do about them. We've had them a few times.

Watching the house martins and swallows darting in and out of the barn at the top of our house- through that tiny square window and flying around the garden catching flies- thank goodness there are plenty around- as long as they stay OUT.
I just love listening to them.

Always think it's a bit sad when they fledge, but at least thst means another successful family reared and flying the nest.

Years ago I bought some willow expandable trellis things from the 99p shop to put in the bedroom window in my flat so I could leave the window open all day without having to worry about pigeons coming in (as I'd had a couple of pigeons in the flat).
I was amazed to find they also kept the flies out! To the extent that when I came home one day and found I'd left the window open but not put the trellis in, my bedroom was full of flies. So I put the trellis in, and within half an hour all the flies were gone.
I have no idea how it works or why but I now hang a trellis in the back door when I want to leave it open and not have a house full of flies.
Of course, whether or not I'll need to all depends on if we get a summer this year...

Glass of wine helps with the little fruit flies. Experiments show that they refer red. They die happy. Honesty it does work. I also have several fly catcher plants on my kitchen windowsill.

As we have shutters on the windows (that open inwards here)- we decided to spend a bit more money on having proper screen that go up and down on runners. It was one of the best investments we made.

This morning I rescued the second bumblebee to have come down the chimney into our mutli-fuel stove in the last week or so. Fortunately the fire has not been lit for a while though, actually, they'd probably avoid the chimney if it smelled smoky.

Sew them up??

I have horrific memories of fly papers.When I was about two years old my Dad was carrying me on his shoulders round the kitchen and I got my hair stuck on the fly paper. I remember being cut off it with all the dead flies next to my fine blond hair.Yuk!!

Hoover them up and get a camping bug zapper.....it's like the blue light things you see in food shops but stands on any flat surface. They're attracted to it and crackle and shrivel when they hit it so you don't end up with lots of dead bodies to get rid of.

So what happens to the dead bodies once they shrivel ?

Just swat them? The flies we get move a darn sight faster than I do. I think they can see me coming a mile off.
libbysmum can I borrow your dog?

They shrivel up very small and collect in the bottom tray which you simply empty every so often.

What kind of place sells them VQ ? That sound useful. As Nellie says they move so fast that I can't catch them.

During the very hot summer of 2013 each day we came home to dozens of dead flies on kitchen and dinning room sills and surfaces. We searched high and low for cause
But could not find anything. I mentioned it to a fellow worker and she gave me her solution......go to hardware shop and buy rentokill or aexron stickers.....they come in butterfly ladybird and sunshiny patterns.......stick a couple on Windows and doors.
I have not seen a fly since change every six months!

You can get fly shrivellers from most camping shops. Ours is about five years old and you have to plug it in but I've just checked and you can now get rechargeable and solar powered ones.

Im going to get the chain male type of door curtains for the 2 conservatory doors now.
I use room sprays...either Lavender or any Citrus scent....they dont like those smells.
And those Lavender scented glass thingies
around the house too. Hot weather coming for a while. A fly zapper sounds like a good idea too. Thanks.

My mother had this problem last year and she was scraping up 80 at one point from her living room, she is always cleaning and at her wits end,, the council told her that it would be 75 quid to come out. She eventually bought a plug in gadget that works for spiders and fries etc, so up to now she's not had any

Early on in the thread, I mentioned I had a wasp nest in the cavity above my bedroom. I wasn't going to bother to deal with it, being up high and away from where my granddaughters play. However, had window cleaner coming so thought it could be dangerous being up there on a ladder. The wasp man came out and I said 'I don't suppose they would've come through the ceiling would they?' and he said 'Oh yes, they sometimes do. I've had them come through a wall, fall through a ceiling. Half a wasps nest lying on a sofa. They can come through'. So that told me! I won't be leaving any in the future, window cleaner or not!

We've noticed many flies also this year.
DH has invested in a tennis racket thingummy - suppose it keeps him fit.

I bought a pack of those sticky things to put on a couple of windows, but have yet to see a satisfactory number of bodies on them.

I've never yet killed a fly with the tennis racket thing; mosquito's are born with the ability to avoid them.

Killing flies with those tennis racquet things is a great after-school activity for the grandchildren.

I quite like the sound of the chain male curtain. I've only got a silky string one at our back door. Note to self- upgrade

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