Where are the flies coming from?

[Sarah CB]

I actually don't want to know and keep trying to stick my head back into the sand, but the sad fact is that there are flies in my house and they must be coming from somewhere.

The house had been empty for about three months before we bought it. I remember looking around it and wondering about the dead flies...there were probably 10 or 12 dead flies in the house.

Well, now we're living here and yesterday there was a fly in ds' bedroom, then I killed one in my bathroom and now there's one in the kitchen. It's below freezing outside and yet, we have flies.

Where might they be coming from? We have well water and a septic system - please say they are not related to either. I really don't want to know, but I guess I have to figure it out.

Oh, and they're big black flies not little fruit flies.

Sarah (ugh)

[Mom2legomaniacs]

One idea (and this happened to us). We had a chimney into which a critter got stuck and expired. Ours came from that. It was nasty! Once we got someone to get the ex-critter out, they were gone.

Hope you find out the source. It was so creepy!

[Amy in NH]

You know the saying "coming out of the woodwork"? How old is your house? Around here, there are lots of 150+ yo houses. We rented one for five years, and we bought one over the summer. Cluster flies (big black ones that look like houseflies) live inside the walls and sometimes the tracks of the windows. They hatch when it is warm enough, sometimes in the middle of winter if there is a warm spell, more frequently in rooms that get enough sun to stay warm, but definitely in the spring, and then they "come out of the woodwork". They're usually found around the windows, because they come from inside the walls through cracks in the window moldings. I have to vacuum them up at least once per week (even in winter).