Housefly Infestation?

[Lauren Angelo]

I hope this doesn't turn anyone off from composting or from visiting us, but we seem to be under siege from houseflies.  At first we thought they were slipping inside when we left exterior doors open, but we have far too many flies popping up even when we aren't leaving doors open.  Like "Oh, I just killed three in the kitchen, and now there are three in the bathroom, and four on the French doors."  So, we're beginning to suspect an infestation.  Ew.  Has anyone else dealt with this?  I put my kitchen-scrap bin outside this evening, and I'm going to give it a very very thorough scrubbing tomorrow, because that seems like the most likely culprit...

Lauren

[Steve Lamm]

Check your crawl space. An animal may have died down there (this happened to my parents once and it happened to me in an apartment). If that ends up being the case, after you get it cleaned up, you will want to close-up any openings that would let an animal slip-in. 

-Steve

[Hannah Goldie Mestel]

Interestingly, we've taken a break from composting for a few months, and we also have a housefly infestation -- so I would guess that it's unrelated to the compost at least!

Good luck with it...

On Tue, Oct 4, 2011 at 11:21 PM, Lauren Angelo <lauren...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Lauren Angelo]

Thanks Hannah and Steve for your thoughts and ideas.

Another person independently suggested the "dead-animal theory" to me yesterday, and then I suggested it to my four-year-old, who then couldn't let go of the idea of going into the crawl space.  So, she put on her work clothes, called my father-in-law over, ... and then watched him go in the crawl space.  We didn't find anything there or in the attic, but we are still finding some flies.  So, the jury is still out.  We also turned on the furnace for the first time in months, and the house smelled fine.  :-\

Lauren

[Steve Lamm]

Yes, my cases of the "dead-animal theory" had two symptoms that you did not mention -- the bad smell, and many, many flies. There were actually two generations of files. The second wave actually had physically smaller flies which was interesting (less food presumably).

Maybe your four-year-old is feeding bananas to the cute wall socket "faces".

-Steve

[Lauren Angelo]

Well, it turns out it was a dead animal!  I had someone come over today to service our heating system (new filter, question about some vents, etc.) -- keeping in the back (or front) of my mind that he'd be in the crawl space and might come across something.  And his first comment on going in there was, "Something died down here."  And later on he found a dead mouse "in the last stages of decomposition."  Thanks again, Steve, for putting this idea into our heads!

Interesting about the second wave of flies in your case.  I didn't notice that our flies were smaller, but I did notice that they were extraordinarily slow-moving -- very easy targets.

And, ha!  I like the theory on the wall sockets.  I did take a flashlight to a heating vent that we have placed under the bench in our breakfast area, but there wasn't any food.

Lauren