How do I figure out where flies are entering my house?
3 months ago by glimse to c/nostupidquestions
I don't leave food out. Garbage gets tossed, counters are cleaned. I replaced half the windows in my home and caulked up the rest. I bought a salt gun and have been picking them off but there's always more.
How do I figure out where these little fuckers are getting in?
"P traps"
They come in through the door when you do. That's the only thing I can figure out, I have the same problem. I've caught them doing it a couple of times, but of course I don't see them every time.
I think you're doing everything you can to keep them out. Unless, you want to build some sort of airlock contraption. Make it with smooth, white walls, a bright light, and a fly swatter. But, the thing is, even then, a few would sneak through, and that would absolutely drive you mad after going through all that effort.
Some places use a directed air blast at the door whenever it opens up. Enough to push any bugs away from opening the door.
Air curtains.
Clean up the dog shit in your yard if you don't regularly. That's likely part of the issue. Also these fly traps work great (we have dogs and chickens).
For me it is in the hottest months and its in the recycling. The recycling bins are not as contained as the general bins, residual food is in the recycling from improper washing. Lone fly in through an open door and lays eggs in recycling, in normal times process from egg hatching to maggots to flies takes longer than the recycling collection period so it is all thrown out. Under very hot conditions it is accelerated and you wake up to 10 newly hatched flies on the inside of your garden door every morning. Solution is when it's very hot put the recycling out more often even if it attracts foxes. This is very specific to me but something similar may be happening for you, I don't think flies squeeze through small gaps.
However meticulous you are about washing recycling still enough organic material might be left for a fly to consider it a viable site to lay eggs. Also washing can sometimes work against you because putting things in the recycling wet can allow a licour to form over time that will smell as bad as anything you have smelled. Wash and disinfect the bins and in the hottest months put them outside. Do you note there is a limited age distribution in the fly populations you see, they are all young adults and all clean and shiny as if they have never been outside.
This guy flies.
I was having the same problem and we couldn't figure it out. I tried hanging up some old school fly paper strips and withing a week or so all the flies were dead on the fly paper and they haven't come back.
I find most of the indoor bugs don't care about the fly zappers. Not a set and forget solution, but in my experience nothing compares to sticky yellow things on a window. Hanging fly paper is good too, but getting what they walk on is best.
If it's the only light source, flies love the blue light disco. Useless in the day but effective in the evening.
It's fun luring them by turning on and off the lights in the house so they follow the light, until you get them near the blue one and game over.
You could recreate the experiments of Jan Baptist van Helmont to determine if your house is the one place on Earth where life spontaneously generates from inanimate matter.
The mentioning of a salt gun just sent me down a rabbit hole...
And this below must be the most US thing I have seen in quite a while! 😆
Also found a fantastic direct translation with hilarious WTF-factor on the page (for anyone speaking German):
They're incredible and by far the best bug killing method I've ever used. They don't move when you're pointing it at them from a meter away and the salt usually just rattles them to death so you aren't picking up bug pieces. Sometimes it vaporizes them, though lol
Don't make the same mistake I did and shoot it near a house plant, though.
Care to translate that German for us lesser people?
Yes, looks effective!
When young, I had a blowpipe shooting sucker cup darts.
Most effective mosquito hunting device I ever owned. But left a mess of the target and was slightly cross to re-use the darts ;-)
I will give translating a try, but guess some of the silly punch will get lost in translation:
"Will the salt squirt [on] the beetle?
No, the beetle stays complete for an easy cleaning"
(Where "bespritzen" may also be used as a colloquial term for ejaculating on someone or something and is in general only used for liquids)
Yes, after thinking about it for a few seconds it becomes clear what they are trying to say.
The direct 1-to-1 translation to German is just really bad and funny sounding :-)
The original Bug-A-Salt. I did some research and the knockoffs are nowhere near as good. And I sure as hell didn't want the one with CO cartridges.
I don't work for them but it was worth every penny. I know 2 other people with them and they say the same.
It uses a minuscule amount of salt. Actually works better than a swatter or the electric one. The form factor is a bit silly, but it gets the job done.
I keep a hash mark count on mine.
Start by identifying the fly. Habitats very by species.
Could be something died in your chimney, could be drain flies, could be vents. Could be doors or crawlspaces. Doesn't take much.
If you've got screens, check that they're in the correct position. I had a sliding screen patio door get knocked off the bottom track, and the gap was wide enough for wasps to get through
They were laying eggs in the window sill at my apartment. They wouldn’t stop and we didn’t realize.
There’s numerous other places, holes in screens of windows, of bathroom exhaust, dryer exhaust. Most annoying might be central heating if you have.
What kind of flies? House flies or fruit flies?
Get those sticky paper strips. You might have to wait a few generations, but after they "hatch" they don't immediately reproduce, but instead look for food first. That's the small window where you have to get them.
Importantly, you have to keep the strips up at least 1 "cycle" after you've caught the last fly!
If you've ruled out the kitchen and bathroom, try exterminating in one room, closing it off for a couple of days, then opening it up. If you see more that's likely a source..
Fly strip in each room and see where there are more?
I used to have lots of flies and noticed one summer when I put tin foil in the windows to cool my house down, I stopped finding flies inside completely. Maybe because it made my house dark, they didn't want to come in anymore? Idk, but I've been gloriously fly-free ever since. You've mentioned you have a basement—do you find fewer flies there? I suspect they might avoid dark places.
Bathroom and kitchen exhaust fans might be an entry point, especially if some critter crawled into the duct and died.
Need more info.
Do you live somewhere that has lots of bugs (Like a high humidity place, lots of plant life outside) or in a dry climate?
In an area with lots of bug life it's hard to completely keep them out - your house is like a sieve and you have a high "bug load". So investigate gaps in window frames, screens, etc.
In a place with few bugs (say US southwest), you're just playing odds and aren't likely to get many anyway.
Someone else mentioned they're probably coming in with you through the open door - in my experience that's the "big gap" (haha) that's hard to reduce.
I'm in the Midwest US, though I don't think it's super relevant. I'm more wondering if there's a way to identify gaps that I'm unaware of. My plan B is to have my friend bring his thermal camera to scan the walls
Have you checked your attic? I was just reading about cluster flies, and... it looks disturbing but at least they don't carry disease. They lay eggs in earthworms and sometimes adult flies congregate in attics.
Actually, depending what the flies actually do inside that might indeed be relevant.
I live in the Midwest and I get these flies called cluster flies. They usually only come in in the fall when looking for somewhere warm to overwinter, but I’ve had them other times as well.
They aren't like houseflies in that they wont really reproduce inside the house, they mostly hang out near windows. I wait for a lot of them to build up on the screen, close the window most of the way, crack the screen open a bit (storm window) and go outside to open the rest of the way.
But once everything is closed up for the year, any left behind just die.
If those are what you’ve got, you probably wont be able to stop them getting in without completely ruining the insulation and humidity profile of your place, especially if its an older place which aren't neatly as airtight as newer ones. They will get in through any ducts going outside, cracks under your siding that aren't sealed, you name it.
Best you can do is get rid of them when you get them.
The windows I didn't replace are all jacked up - including the screens. That's where I assumed it they were getting in which is why I caulked them closed. I guess at least that'll save me on heating and cooling...
How close are your outdoor trash cans to your front door? In the hottest summer months it is sometimes hard to keep flies from laying maggots in the trash cans and even though it’s about 15+ feet from my door through a gate they still manage to fly in.
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Questions which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.
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