Fly infestation in loft...

This is why I put the bodies under the patio

Is that where the bodies are kept?

Best contact local council pest control.

Stench pipe up there?
Dead rodents?
Next time dig a hole first

I’d be looking for the source of the flies - dead mouse, rat or squirrel maybe?

What sort of flies?

"Cluster flies" are a thing. I had them once, came home to find the living room window absolutely covered in them. They disappeared as suddenly as they appeared, weird AF and kinda disturbing.

As above its probably cluster flies, they like to over winter in your loft. Just put up some of those horrible fly papers to get rid of the worst numbers & prepare to live with them popping up occasionally. They’re harmless if annoying & unless you make you house air tight, they’ll find a way in

Point taken on body disposal, I need to stop hoarding so much 🤔

Since we moved in ~7 years ago there always been a ready supply of dead flies in the loft, but this year is up a notch. The last owner had a couple of tins of fly spray in the loft so it's nothing new.

Went up this morning to start gathering up the Christmas decorations (not going up yet!) and a sizable clump of flies still half alive. Guess the mild weather has stopped them dying off so quickly this year.

Might just buy some fresh tins of fly spray and periodically give the loft a blast.

Fly paper is a good shout too. Couple of A3 sheets should do 😅

We had those in a past house. Set off some bombs things up in the loft and then spent a good few hours sweeping up thousands of the buggers a couple of weeks later. Then put down insulation and boards, so it wasn't a complete waste of time!

Get a proper pest controller in to do a fogging treatment.
Then repeat in spring and should clear it for a few years.

Are they all buzzing around or just sitting in a big group? If it’s the latter they’ll be cluster flies, as others have said. They look a bit like house flies, but they like to live in loft spaces over winter (and they’re actually quite dozy and really bad at flying).

I had them once. I took the long hoover tube, extended it as much as it would go, and hoovered them all up. They’re too slow to get away.

Had cluster flies in the last house once. Also hoovered!

Yea my loft has those, as I figured out a few years ago when I fitted the stove. When I first lit it, loads of them woke up and somehow made it down to the living room. That was quite an unpleasant surprise!

No tips on treatment as it's never been a problem since then. They're in the loft and I'm not...

I also get loads. It’s very seasonal.

These products work very well

https://www.clusterflyshop.co.uk/

Cluster flies.

Get them once every year living in the internals of our velux window.

I use good old henry hoover out and suck them up.

I had cluster flies this year in the eaves. Released four of the smoke things from Amazon over the course of a fortnight and it dealt with the problem nicely. Strongly recommend you place them on a baking tray or similar though as the plastic container caught fire on one of them.

It happened to me a few times during the summer because my bin was full of rotten stuff. I just opened the windows to let them out but I also enjoyed using fly swatter like Godzilla destroying "planes" mid air. Because they were newly hatch ones their body were not fully "dry" and clumsy in flight so swatting them is like playing badminton. I think I swattered hundreds of them at one point.

olly2097
Free Member
Cluster flies.

Get them once every year living in the internals of our velux window.

I use good old henry hoover out and suck them up.

haha this is us to a tee - exactly the same in the velux - we usually leave it a bit open all through the year in the top floor as we like a bit of airflow through the floor - however we closed it as the weather drew in this year, and then it got too hot within a few days, i opened up the velux and bam there was about 50 of the horrible little things, obviously disturbed them and they just came out and into the bedroom all at once - totally totally gross!

weve got some fly spray now that kills on contact - so i just spray around the velux plastic before i close it now, they wont want to go anywhere near that stuff

weirdly neighbours with the same designed house both sides have not had this happen once!

Apart from being annoying, do cluster flies actually cause any harm to health or damage to the house?

We had them in the attic of our old house. We demolished it, and built a new one on the site, and we now have them in the new attic 🙄😂

Apparently they lay eggs in the lawn and when the larvae emerge and turn into flies they follow scent trails to nice warm dry attics...

(I may not have that lifecycle exactly right 😂)

I don’t think they cause any real harm. They do leave little brown spots of fly poop though which isn’t ideal and release some sort of musty smelling pheromone but you only really notice if there are significant numbers.

I must have a small gap in a window frame into one of our bathrooms. On a few separate occasions recently I’ve walked in to see about 100 of them on the window…

I’ve since sprayed some of that stuff I linked up above around the window and it’s kept them away. The odd one still makes its way through but then dies before it’s had chance to get any further than the windowsill.

Hovering them up is quite satisfying

Thanks for the recommendations, I'll get some ordered.

They fly around but not with much vigour, very grouped in the loft so sounds like clusterflys.

The ones that made it into the house were easy game.

It's no wonder our biodiversity is utterly knackered when people can't tolerate a few flies wintering in their loft. We have them, I let them get on with their business whilst I get on with mine. Aside from catching the odd one and turfing it out, they're not a problem.

Never heard of such things. Amusing to hear of people hoovering the little fellas up. Do they just live in the hoover then then?

Could acquire a house spider 🕷