We are getting lots of tiny (~3mm long) black flies appearing around the house (S.E. London not in the wilds of the countryside) and I can't find where they are coming from.
Is it due to the time of year? Anyone else getting them? Any suggestions apart from regular spraying? Venus fly-trap?
TIA - Dave.
Like a banananana ?
IGMC
Avpx
Thrips
From outside.
I think they like fluorescent yellow sticky traps. They can be a PITA because they are small enough to get into flat screen TVs, PCs and Monitors. I have a monitor with thrips between backlight and screen and some paintings with thrips trapped under the glass.
I'd stump up a bit of money on them being filter flies, a.k.a. drain flies.
A few years ago something similar happened at my mother's house. Turned out that many years ago, some "builder" had tipped rubble down the stack pipe - which had partially blocked it and caused physical damage. (I found this out by opening up the inspection cover and tried to clear the pipe up to the bathroom. Felt like it was full of all-in-ballast with some bits of brick. Amazing that the drains themselves seemed still to work fairly well.) So these flies sniffed out the sewage-soaked soil - even though it was right under the solid concrete bathroom floor - and bred. She'd find them in every room of the house, on pretty much every surface.
Eventually her insurance people agreed to fix it - and the flies disappeared overnight.
Although they seemed worse in the summer, they were there for many months. "Experts" such as council and water company and plumbers all shook their heads and failed to identify the actual problem.
Haven't just started recycling have you? Fruit flies can breed bloody fast in a food recycling container if it's left even a smidgeon open. Or check the fruitbowl!
BTW I have a venus fly try and it does catch a few of them but they're so small, many just walk all over it - literally.
Paul DS.
Try to avoid painting, especially white, as it seems to attract them and it will get peppered with lumpy black spots.
rusty
Catch one photograph it and send its picture to an entomologist, Used to be a free service of Nat Hist museum, but I bet its not any more.
Brian
Yes, house is loaded with them for the last five weeks. Impossible to see where they are coming from or why. :(
Cape Sundews catch them very well.
There's a Sundew, Venus Flytrap, and a pitcher plant on my kitchen windowsill, and between them, they finish off just about anything that flies in the room. I do put them outside from time to time too, to make sure they get enough to eat. There's nothing the venus flytrap likes better than to sit on top of a smelly wheelie bin in the summer. I'll leave it there for a day until all the leave have closed, and about a third of them will have caught a fly. (They're rather more evolved for catching crawling insects on the ground - they aren't fast enough to catch a fly every time.) The pitcher plant loves going out on flying ant days, although indoors, it tends to catch bigger things such as flys and wasps.
Inside? Have you checked for soggy potatoes at the back of the veggie cupboard?
In message , mogga writes
BINGO! You are Spot On! After some careful searching I found a couple of small potatoes that we had missed and they had definitely turned VERY soggy. All cleaned up, the area disinfected, and hardly any more flies to be seen now. Phew!
I like the idea of the pitcher plant (as well as the Venus fly-trap) since it sounds quite entertaining to my sick mind. I'll keep an eye out for one of those although I'm not at all green-fingered and most of the plants that I buy don't seem to last for very long.
Anyway, many thanks to all of the contributors. Much appreciated.
- Dave.
The pitcher's can be a bit noisy when something large goes in and spends up to 30 minutes trying to fly whilst jammed in the tube, as they are shaped like a trumpet bell. The fatter pitchers will drown the insects quckly and quietly.
All the caverniverous plants I have need to stay wet and prefer being in a pot which is in a saucer of water. You can't use tap water. Best is rain water, but I have also used water from a filter jug and from a dehumidifier when I've run out of rain water.
In message , Andrew Gabriel writes
When was that then ?
>
Cave-dwelling plants?
Good - glad you found the source!
When my indoor bottle ran out and the water butt tap was frozen solid.
Why did you have a water tap in you butt in the first place? Severe diarrhoea?
Today (yesterday, actually) I called into a recently revamped Morrison's store since I was passing. They had a display of sort of cabbages and various greens, above which there was a large sparge pipe emitting plumes of steamy-looking vapour, evidently to keep the produce damp and soft.
I did think in terms of Legionnaires' disease, but I'm sure this must've been taken into account for the revamp.
I stuck with a couple of packs of McCain's Microchips, which is what I went in for.
It's actually cold drinking water direct from the main under high pressure and with *very* small nozzle holes.
Some theme parks use a similar idea to keep the clients cool in Summer. The droplets are so small, you don't feel wet.
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