My kitchen has been invaded by flies! What shold i do?!

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I would really appreciate quick suggestions. I live alone, and moved to this flat 4 moths ago. This morning I suddenly saw that my kitchen had been invaded by flies Shocked

(the big black ones)!! There are maybe 50 of them! I quickly closed the door, so that they wouldn't spread to the entire apartment. I am thinking of three things at the moment.

1. Just rushing in, closing the door behind me and opening the kitchen window. Maybe they will fly out because it is slightly lighter outside.

2. I know these flies are suckers for light. There is a hallway from the kitchen to the main door, leading out to the main common hallway. It is possible to just close the doors in my dark hallway so that the flies might fly from the kitchen door (I would open it) to the main hallway (I can turn on the lights there). But that would be kind of mean, because I don't think the neighbours would like it.

3. Find some kind of insect spray. But I'm not sure how wise it is to use this in the kitchen..

As a side note I am really puzzled by how they got there so fast. I wouldn't think that they can reproduce SO fast. I did forget to bring out some trash, and it might have been left open. But still, yesterday all I could see was one fly, the kitchen window had been closed all night, and I am sure that the kitchen door had been closed.

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This actually happened to me once, I was going about my normal morning things, getting ready to make breakfast and didn't even realize that there were over 50 big black flies in my kitchen.

I took a can of raid and gave each one a spray and they dropped to the ground and died instantly, then I opened all the windows and aired out the house....

I found a few stray flies in the living room and the bathroom, but luckily none in the bedroom...

To this day I still don't know how they got there, but my guess was that we used to get fruit flies that came up our drain, sometimes they would take over our kitchen....

But take a can of bug spray and just give each fly a light spray and they will instanly fall to the ground

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Quick steps for getting rid of flies:

1. Get rid of the dead rat.

2. Open windows and doors.

3. Wait.

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These are probably what we call cluster flies. They come inside in the Fall to escape the cold. Here's a little bit about them http://www.uky.edu/Ag/Entomology/entfacts/struct/ef624.htm

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I think that Drew may be on to something here. I once worked in an upstairs office that had those little recessed lights in the ceiling.
One day, about fifty or so blowflies (the big black ones) appeared within minutes.
They were all coming through the tiny gaps around the recessed lighting, from the loft space up above.
Turned out that there was a dead pigeon up there.

I would have a good nose around, if I were you, HH.

Good luck, and welcome to A2K.

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The Lord... of... the... dead pigeons.

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Thanks for the replies. So now I don't think there are any flies in my kitchen anymore. I went and bought some insect spray, but when I went inside the kitchen again I noticed something odd. Many of the flies were lying dead on the floor, and some where crawling on the floor.

When I tried to touch the flies on the wall with a piece of paper they just held on to the paper or fell down. They seemed to be very weak and only a few of them could fly. So I came up with a new plan and used a vacuum cleaner to get rid of them. This is not possible with normal, healthy black flies, because I have tried that before. Maybe they are in some kind of hibernation, I don't know.

As to the dead pigeon/rat theory, I am pretty sure that there are no dead animals inside my kitchen, but maybe a rat has died inside the wall or something. I live on the second floor, and there are two more floors above me. Besides they didn't gather around a special place in my kitchen.

I think that you might be right, lord Ellpus. After looking at the link you posted, I too believe that they were cluster flies. I think that they have been attracted to my warm apartment.
"Window screens offer no protection from the flies because they crawl in the home through small openings in the walls of the building."

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The dead rat thing actually happened in an office building I once worked in.

They had a rat problem, so baited the rats. Do you know how far back a sick rat crawls? There was no chance of getting to the carcass.

First nothing, then blowflies, then a horrendous stench that fades slowly.

Then more rats...

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The flies in my home were sluggish also, as if they were sick... I could have caught them with my hands!! I didn't understand it at all and I never figured it out... they also never came back

I also lived on the second floor and had a floor above me... My windows were down also...

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Cluster flies...any relation to those ducks that like to cluster...maybe a reason for the rapid population growth.

Sometimes I just can't help myself---hopefully no one will get it.

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I get it, now go to your room, sister!

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Do you mean, "Get thee to a nunnery?" I beg forgiveness, I was so tired I had become a little loopy.

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Are we referencing Hamlet now?

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Sister Sweet Potato Queen was, but not me.

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Make fly soup.

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I'm just having the fly problem so thanks for the cluster fly item. I did have a lodger once who had a guinea pig. When she moved out I'd forgotten about it, but she did look a bit sheepish. there was a peculiar smell in the room, and a couple of days later the window was black with big blowflies. I vacuumed them up and after a couple of weeks the smell had faded away. Now I have a strict no pets policy.

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@hungry hippo,

Just want to add that I had a major issue in my kitchen with flies between the size of fruit flies and black flies. Couldn't figure it out for days. Set out traps and caught about 100. Finally today I opened a cupboard and they all came swarming out. They had previously come out of the adjacent dishwasher and figured a mouse got in there and drowned. But I went throught that cupboard and sure enough there was a bag of ridiculously rotten potatoes. A million flies came off that. We then proceeded to spray disinfectant on anything and everything, give the cappucino machine a serious detail, set out one more trap and light a couple candles. 3 hours later, flies are gone and kitchen smells amazing. Well worth it. Where there are flies there is SOMETHING rotting!! Find the area they all come from.. Its either the source or the adjacent storage areas are. Good luck fly hunters!! Korri

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We have a guy in our basement that is moving out soon we think something is up with him. We had a really big heat wave recently and always noticed a few flies here and there and now for the past almost week we have seen some weird stuff. We found maggots crawling from our living room towards our kitchen and now we have found and killed like 50-100 flies. It's so disgusting I have kids and it scares the hell out of me that something is rotting somewhere. We keep pointing the finger at the guy moving out because he lives downstairs and our suite is upstairs. I hope not! We bought those fly striplings and there is about 20 stuck to that but still about 20 on the window just buzzing around. I've tried shop vacuuming them all up and I clean my house daily so I know nothing is rotting they are in my kitchen windows and in my living room window. None really anywhere else

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@Crazielady420,

Keep your compost or Dust bin always covered. Clean the areas that likes under the dishwasher. Boil some vinegar in an open pan.

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@hungry hippo,

Here is a little trick I learned several years ago to keep flies from entering: Get a zip lock sandwich bag, fill it about half full of water - some people add a couple of pennies to the water - and hang it over the doorway with a thumb tack. Flies will NOT fly under it! They see the reflection from the surface of the water and think it's a predator over the door, so they will not enter! Of course, once they get in, the water bag will keep them from flying out, so you will have to use some other method of extermination, like flypaper hanging around. A bug zapper may also be helpful in this case - try baiting it with rotting meat in the bottom.

I learned this trick out in the Arizona desert. The flies were thick outside the house, (all the doors were open, no screens), and bags with water were hanging over all the doors. but there were hardly any flies at all inside. If there were too many of them i use the bag and this (moderator edit: link removed) gets rid almost any type of flies! perfect combo

I have since heard several other people that used the same trick.

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My kitchen has been invaded by flies! What shold i do?!

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