Cluster Flies in your house

Hello, loyal readers, it’s me again.

It is coming up to that time of year again where cluster flies become a nuisance.

To the untrained eye, they can look like regular flies but there is a big difference. Cluster flies are probably one of the biggest fly pests we deal with, especially in the Spring and Autumn. You may start noticing flies gathering on one side of your property, on the walls outside, on the windows both inside and out and generally on a south facing area so as to get as much heat as possible while they can. These flies will start in small numbers but grow rapidly. It might seem that it’s the same flies there day after day but this is not the case. The first arrivals leave an invisible pheromone trail for others to follow. They have found a good site in which they can survive over the Winter and be ready for next Spring when it gets warm enough for them to fly off and go about their business. And this is when you notice the sheer numbers. In the autumn this happens in reverse, as the weather cools the adult flies are looking for a place to overwinter in a temperature-stable and safe environment. 

What does all this mean to you as a homeowner? Well, if you are experiencing high levels of these flies in the Spring or Autumn, the pheromone trails they leave will help other flies know it’s a safe place to overwinter the next year and this has a snowball effect. The more and more pheromones left previously, the stronger the draw for the following years’ overwintering cluster flies. 

Where do we usually find cluster flies in numbers? In general cluster, outside of the Autumn and Spring activities, they are normally found in the voids of your house. The biggest voids that are accessible are the loft and occasionally a basement. Areas that are generally dark, and do not fluctuate in temperature as much as when exposed to the elements outside.

Other signs you may have cluster flies

This can be different for many people. Some notice large numbers of flies in the windows or on the walls, others may hear buzzing like wasps in the loft (September-November time) when trying to sleep. Some people find out when entering the loft wearing a head lamp, or switching a loft light on to conduct an early search for the Christmas decorations. Either way, cue a cloud of flies. Then there’s that horrible moment when removing a loft hatch: fly corpses shower down on the unsuspecting. This isn’t nice even for us and it can still give us a shock when it happens – we are only human at the end of the day. 

The remedy

We can treat this very easily using a range of professional products and we are currently also trying to use as many organic products as possible in all our treatments, be it for insect or rodent. Either way, we will have a solution to suit your needs. 

When we say, if you have a pest we have the solution! We really do mean that. Anyway, that’s a blog on its own. So, for now, I will say farewell and wish you all a pest-free environment wherever you are. 

One of the few ways we can treat cluster flies