i have an older house with a finished attic, the ac ductwork is behind the walls, mostly kneewalls. i had squirrels in my attic a couple of months back and i could hear them running around. they got in through opening around the eaves and overhang. that problem was taken care of and the squirrels disappeared. now for about a week i noticed large flies on every floor, about 10 on each floor. where do they come from and is it connected with the squirrels. i never smelled anything rotten or dead. will the flies eventually go away? my wife is ready to call an exterminator but if he cant get behind everthing in the attic what’s the point. any help is greatly appreciated.
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Replies
Did it recently warm up?
A Great Place for Information, Comraderie, and a Sucker Punch.
Remodeling Contractor just outside the Glass City.
http://www.quittintime.com/
What kind of flies? Regular house flies or something else? We have a lot of boxelder bugs for some reason, even though the Japanese lady beetles have trouble getting into our house.
the flies are black and fairly big, they are also slow so it's pretty easy to get them.
put a leash around their necks and treat them as pets.
(And how were the squirrels "taken care of"? Heavyset guy named Vinnie?)
If they are fairly large, they are cluster flies. They live in houses, & have nothing to do with the squirrels. Actually, I should say that they winter over in window trim, and usually disappear for the summer. They are not carrion eaters, and not harmful.
The usual treatment is to vacuum them up, but if you want to spend lots of money on an exterminator, you probably can.
Somewhere recently I've seen a little trap device you can place on the window sill...possibly in the Home Trends catalog - try hometrends.com. There is also the bug zapper, a long tube with a vacuum device, powered with a battery, that you can suck them up with as they emerge. My ss, who is allergic to bees, finds that useful for disposing of the occaisonal hornet
We have a winner...The cluster fly is a PITA. I deal with them every time we go north. They normally live in decaying leaves and move in to the warm house for the winter where most die. This year was not as bad as last and I hope the trend continues in 09. My last house never had a one. I had someone say they only live in log homes. I told him he was misinformed and that I didn't have a log home and had cluster flies.
If only cluster flies were the worst problem any of us ever had!
Bird mites seem to be annoying..LOL
As do wasps, moths and 'skeeters.
Hell, log house, yup..we got'em all.Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
"Success is not spontaneous combustion, you have to set yourself on Fire"
The 300-year-old house is generously endowed with cluster flies & the odd wasp, but my friends in an old house in MA have the oriental ladybugs - they leave yellow stains, & they BITE! So I consider myself lucky...
Had a SLEW of them here too. Four yrs later and a LOT of vacuming has really made a noticable improvement. That and basically tearing into every wall they lived in and kicking them out, and sealing.
Grackles are a recurring nightmare still.Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
"Success is not spontaneous combustion, you have to set yourself on Fire"
Too bad you can't feed the grackles to the puppies...
They may be mutts, but I don't think they are bird dogs..LOL
Ba-da-Boom.Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
"Success is not spontaneous combustion, you have to set yourself on Fire"
Could be the squirrels.
I went through the exact same thing last fall. Had a family of them living up in the attic. Mother and some new borns. Tried getting a hold of them and pulling them out, but mother was too quick. By the time I figgered out where exactly they were, and managed to squeeze myself over in their direction, she had them relocated elsewhere.
Finally just decided to scare her out. I was hoping she would take the babies with her, but apparently not. After I saw here scampering away one day, I plugged the entrance. Searched the attic for the babies and never found them.
She came back with a vengance trying to get back in, so I figured they were up there somewhere. I never found them though.
About a week later, my house was inundated with flies.
They didn't last long, but confirmed that the baby squirrels never made it out.
J. D. Reynolds
Home Improvements
Pp, Qq
i talked to an exterminator and he said if something would have died in my attic i would have smelled it. the flies are fairly large and also slow, so it's pretty easy for me to get them with the old rolled up newspaper.
Yeah....I wondered why I hadn't smelled anything.....but this is an old house, and the attic is far from air tight.
I dunno nothing about flies....but the coincidence was too coincidental.
Been over a year.....aint seen em since.
I'm chalking them up to dead squirrels.
J. D. Reynolds
Home Improvements
Pp, Qq
When I moved into our house 9 years ago I had a chimney sweep clean one of our chimneys, I was going to use the open fireplace in the living room during our first winter. He removed a large squirrels nest in the chimney. The following summer I was in the living room and heard some movement in the chimney. I went outside and looked towards the chimney top and sure enough there was a squirrel building a new nest. On the next day I went onto the roof and blocked off the chimney top with some diamond mesh so they couldn't get in anymore.
4 weeks later I noticed some black flies in our living room, I thought they came inside when I opened the patio door. On the next day there were more of them in the living room. To make a long story short, after 7 days we had over 100 flies inside the house and i didn't know where they came from. Then all of a sudden I noticed 2 flies coming out of they fireplace. And then 2 more and so on. After some investigating I found a dead, rotten squirrel on top of the flue damper. Every time I opened the flue the dead bastard was trapped by the damper, that why I couldn't find him at first.
Since that day I hate every squirrel around the house and they seem to know that. Both dogs are chasing after them or I shoot them with a finish nailer when I am in the shop and notice them.
Martin
cluster flies...
they've come out of hibernation for the remainder of their very short life....
the laid their larvae just out side the door in the flower beds and grass...
as adults they are finished and don't appear or seem to hurt anything... just be an anoyance...
FWIW.. the larvae feed on harmful plant and root destroying grubs...
there are several threads from over a year ago about these guys...
till they faid out.. just vaccum them up every few days....
as there will be a stagering number of them
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 also had a lot of problems with cluster flies in the winter in my old house when we first moved in. They overwinter under the siding and in the wall cavity. They then emerge in the spring to go lay their eggs outside. So any warm day in the winter/early spring would always bring a flush of them out. So nights it was impossible to read in the bedroom with a couple dozen flies buzzing around.
They were getting in through cracks around the window frame and around the chimeny. The good news is that caulking around any of them not only got rid of the cluster flies, but also helps a lot for reducing drafts. If the cluster flies are getting into the house you can be sure that cold air is coming in or hot air going out in the same location.
Around the chimney and the attic hatch were the major culprit for us. Once I sealed these area I reduced the amount of flies in the house by 80% I'd say. The other location was the bathroom window, large space between window casing and wall. Once I filled it with foam, we hardly see a dozen or more in the span of a winter.
A.