Slow moving flies have taken over our house

[Anonymous]

I'm exagerrating, but we do get a few big slow flies a day at least. Why???? It seems as soon as we kill one, a new one appears. They are always big, no babies. I don't have a housekeeper, but we keep the house clean-though far from spotless. Could we have a dead animal in the attic? We take out trash on a regular basis. Why are the lethargic overgrown flies visiting my home????

[Anonymous]

I think you have a dead animal somewhere. Sorry.

[Anonymous]

Ewwwww. I was afraid of that. Time to call the exterminator. We had a mouse issue in the attic last year and he put out poison. Yikes. I bet some mice tried to move into the attic for the winter again.

[Anonymous]

Is there old fruit somewhere?

[Anonymous]

Not that I know of. We eat a lot of fruit so it goes quickly. Maybe one of the kids hid a piece somewhere? I though fruit flies were smaller and faster than these big lethargic things.

[Anonymous]

We get big, slow flies in the country. I never made the deal animal connection. Ew.

You can kill them with a towel snap.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We get big, slow flies in the country. I never made the deal animal connection. Ew.

You can kill them with a towel snap.

Yes, very easy to kill them. Interesting about the country. We do have a lot of trees around and deers visit often. Does that count?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We get big, slow flies in the country. I never made the deal animal connection. Ew.

You can kill them with a towel snap.

Yes, very easy to kill them. Interesting about the country. We do have a lot of trees around and deers visit often. Does that count?

It might. Is there a way they could be getting in from outside?

[Anonymous]

Are they cluster flies? They nest in wall voids and you might have a hole somewhere letting some of them into your house.

[Anonymous]

OP here. I think I read about cluster flies and they fit the description. They nest in wall voids?? We have new windows. I wonder where the holes could be.

[Anonymous]

Cluster fly PP here... I know about this because we had them, and because we were doing some drywall work in our basement so there were holes in the drywall, they ALL came out into our basement (and a few got up to the house). It was disgusting and I spent two times a day for about a week with the wet/dry vac in the basement sucking up the ones I could see, plus fly paper, etc. There were a lot of flies.

We also have all new windows but I know they can come in just about anywhere... eaves near the roof, siding, whatever. They like the warm sunny south side of buildings so I went to the south side of our house and watched for them on a warmer day when they were going in and out. It took me a few days/tries but I finally found a very not-obvious area of older exterior basement window trim/framing that had a slight crack between it and the new window and wasn't caulked (I was hoping they weren't coming in in the attic since there was no way I could get up there easily, and I lucked out). I caulked it, had to deal with the flies that were then trapped inside, and it was finally over. It definitely made me feel like the grossest person alive. The only consolation is that they are not filth flies, and they are pretty easy to kill. They are super annoying, though, since they gravitate towards heat/light. Good luck!

[Anonymous]

i had the slow moving flies last year. lasted several days and it started to die down. i actually called an exterminator but there were hardly any left by the time he got there. he said there must be something dead somewhere...that they would disappear in a few days. very strange because they are easy to swat.....

my sympathies....

[Anonymous]

It is a dead animal. hate to tell you.

[Anonymous]

Yep. Dead animal. We had a similar experience years ago in our old townhouse. Horrible dead animal smell, followed by what we call The Scourge. Big, fat, lazy flies lolling through the house in threes. The cats loved them. We did not. After a couple of weeks, they were all gone.

The exterminator, who was unable to source out the dead animal smell, warned us of what was to come. Gross.

[Anonymous]

Yep, dead animal. But really, look on the bright side. The flies are helping you out. Their larvae will take care of the corpse for you in no time, and spare you the mess and expense of having to hack open a wall to get at the stink. Flies are good in this circumstance. Once the body is done, the flies will be gone. Just think happy thoughts in the meantime.