Hi! I notice you talk about 'fruit flies' a lot, but I don't think you have spoken about blue bottles! Suddenly I have been finding about 5/6 in my kitchen each day. I spray them with a product called 'Bugs Away' when I see them which kills them instantly, and clean my surfaces a lot. I have looked under the appliances and cupboards, and although it was a mess, there is no sign of any dead animals or maggots etc. What can I do next!?!?
They keep on coming, I just don't know where from! I have also looked in behind sockets and things, no luck.
I am tempted to call the council out, but I dread a 'rentokill' van sitting outside my house and I can't see what else they can do!?
Any help would be great!
Thanks!!
Paul

Thanks for the reply Lorace,

I have tried using your alternative approach to killing the bluebottle flies, but strangely enough I haven't killed one yet. Though maybe if you advise me of some of your favorite music tracks, I can download them, play them to the flies, and kill them that way? On second thoughts, I don't want to do anything too drastic, especially if it's going to be harmful to humans.
Hmmm......
Paul ;)

Bluebottle flies lay eggs in dead (and sometimes live) animals, but the larvae leave the food source and find some sheltered place to pupate. Since house foundations form an ideal environment, you can get bluebottles hatching in your house without having something dead drawing them in.

The best and safest way to deal with them is with fly traps. There are sticky traps that sometimes work, but bait traps work the best. The downside is that the bluebottles are drawn to a smell of decay, so the "bait" for these traps can have an unpleasant aroma (to humans - flies and canines like it. :-O )
There are some that are better than others for indoor use - look for fly bait traps made by Woodstream.

I guess I owe Paul an apology!

I honestly have never heard of Bluebottle Flies, and I truly thought this was a joke post and I enjoyed it.

Ada, you are so knowledgeable about these things and I'm really glad you could offer your good advice. We certainly owe you on these boards!

Paul, no wonder my advice wasn't any good! Who knows, though. Wouldn't it be something if the musical tip worked??

I'm having fun laughing at myself here.

Lorace

I thought your answer was funny, Lorace!

Just to add to my earlier reply: Here's one of the Woodstream Fly Traps I was talking about. They work, but it is best to have them somewhere in moving air. In a closed space, the bait can get pretty "ripe" which can make the solution worse than the problem.

I'm just so glad that Paul has a sense of humor. I loved his response, and just wish that I had suggested that the blue bottles might respond to Bluegrass music.

He could lull them to sleep with Bluegrass then run over them with his power mower. That should do the trick.

See, Larry. I DID take my meds this morning!!

Lorace

In all honesty. That must be a terrible problem and I do hope he gets rid of them with Ada's advice!

Well Lorace - I'll accept your apology, seeing as you have now learnt about the humble existence of the beautiful bluebottle fly, and also seeing as you look a lot like my girlfriends granny.
I don't really like flies, they freak me out a bit; apart from bumble bees, they remind me of good weather.
I was once on a summer camp in Donegal, a remote part or Ireland, when I was about 14. Me and a couple of pals lost my frisbee in a kind of marsh land, so without telling any adults, we set off to find it. Within seconds of stepping into this marshy area, I noticed a few flies hovering above my head. It got so bad that we had to run away without the frisbee, and eventually there were literally hundreds of massive flies swarming and buzzing around my head, flying into my face.
To say the least, this incident frightened me for life, and I hate flies when they're in vast quantities. And the little buggers still have my frickin frisbee...
A little off topic, but I just know Lorace will have a good story to follow...
Paul

Paul, How on earth could I top your story? That was horrendous and I can only imagine how you must feel with having bluebottle fly problems...now I know how to cure them. Get rid of any frisbees you have lying around!!!! :}

No kidding, your story reminded me of the time I was a kid, visiting my grandparents in Connecticut. I was playing in a field with a bunch of cousins and neighbor kids. Some farm worker offered us kids money to clear out some piles of hay. We did just that and one of the boys lifted some hay and with it, under the hay,a hornet's nest. We all ran screaming and getting stung by hundreds of bees! (taken to a hospital afterwards)

We swear to this day that the man knew it was there, cause he disappeared and we never got paid! So guess what I'm afraid of?

This is turning out to be a thread on phobias, isn't it?

Thanks much...(are you from Ireland?)

Lorace

Lorace - I bet you'll never forget that day! That must have hurt...

I am from Northern Ireland, near Belfast.

Never been to America but I suppose I'd like to see it, it's kind of costly flying there from here! I'll stick to Spain for the mean time I think...

How about you guys? Have you ever been to Northern Ireland or Ireland before?

By the way thanks for the info Ada, appreciated :) You sure do know a lot about flies! Heading shopping tomorrow, gonna look out for woodstream traps. These little guys think they're so fly right now! But by next week they won't be laughing any longer!

Paul

Hi Paul,

Glad to see you back again. Unless you count transiting through Shannon, Ireland is a country still on my wish list. My grandmother was an Erwin. Her father was second generation Irish-American. Her mother was a Whiteman from England. She married a Cristy (originally Christie), fourth generation US from Scotland. So, at least on my mother's side, I have a little of the Irish in my veins.

I have spent considerable time in England and some in Scotland, never getting to Ireland and wishing I could. Two of my great business friends are first-generation Irish. Donal Logan has a great Irish Tenor voice and can sing all the songs he learned as a youth. When I can get some Guinness down him he leaves no eye dry after "Danny Boy." The other fellow has kissed the Blarney Stone and a little Guinness lubricates the story teller in him. I worked in the air transport industry and know a few employees of Aer Lingus, all fine people. Eire is still on my short list of places to see.

Fly story: I was working in the industrial two-way radio maintenance world in my late teens. We had to go find the problem with a radio transmitter that was on top of a wooded hill with a wire connecting it to an office at the bottom. Walking down the hill while checking the wire stirred up clouds of small flies. They were in my ears, mouth, nose, and eyes. They got down my shirt. It was a day to be remembered - not fondly. Flies don't taste good.

Larry

Euuugghhh, that's horrible even to think about! There's just something eerie about flies... And our stories show that even though most are completely harmless, we really get quite freaked out by the little buggers!

I don't really know a lot about Ireland, with you mentioning Eire and Shannon etc, can't say I've ever been there. I've only been to a couple of places, Dublin, Donegal, Connemara etc, which I thought were a nice place for a break. I live in Northern Ireland, the capital being Belfast, as opposed to Ireland's Dublin.

I once heard a story about an SAS covert sniper, hiding in thick grass, only lying on his front. In order not to give away his position and compromise the operation, he only moved when the breeze swayed the grass gently forwards and backwards, thus taking him 3 days to complete. Somewhere along his path he disturbed a hive of some sort. He was stung everywhere, but didn't allow himself to even flinch.

Amazing eh?

I think of that guy when I see a wasp, it helps a bit!!

Paul

These stories are simply marvelous! Paul, how we'd love for you to visit America! And to think that we let March 17th go by without wishing you a Happy St. Patrick's Day! Consider it done, belatedly. Do they celebrate it in Spain?

I'd just love to visit Ireland. Always wanted to do so, but at this stage of life, I know it's a dream that won't come true. My mother's maiden name was MALLORY and her mother's name was Rebecca Murphy, so I think there's an Irishman somewhere in my past!

You brought back another memory of the monster flies, Paul and Larry. My late husband had a terrible skin ailment, which is why we were moving from Michigan to Arizona. When we got to Missouri, it was 101o and sticky! We stopped at a restaurant and my husband started getting attacked by flies around his head. (Plasma seeped from his ear lobes because of this skin ailmentJ) We ran out to the car only to find that we'd left the car windows open and it was infested with hundreds of the Missouri flies! They all went right for him.

For the rest of his days, he was paranoid about flies, and who could blame him?

Ugh, let's get rid of those blue bottles. Interesting bit, after Never having heard of blue bottles, the novel I'm currently reading, mentioned -- green bottle flies!! I'm haunted.

Lorace -- Help, Ada!

My story is slightly different...

My wife-to-be and I were driving across the full width of Texas in July 1976, in a car with a black interior and no air conditioning. Suddenly, the air is full of huge dragonflies, all at least three inches long. We scramble to roll up our windows in the July Texas heat and fortunately did not have any fly into the car. Yeah, dragonflies are harmless but who needs a big one buzzing down your shirt at 75 miles per hour?

The dragonflies ended and we started to see odd black spots on the road. Then some of them moved! They were tarrantulas, at least 20 or so every mile for dozens of miles. Needless to say, we did not stop the car. Everytime I think of Texas, I think of dragonflies and tarrantulas.

--Bob

No way! Tarantulas are pretty damn scary. Why were there so many on the road? Dragon flies are scary, they're so long and skinny.

I'm just in from the shops, couldn't find any Woodstream traps, so I opted for rentokill traps instead. The guy in the shop had never heard of Woodstream, we might not sell them at all over here. I got a citronella based thing to repel the flies, and some fly paper which will be fun in the morning...

Paul

Paul said, "No way! Tarantulas are pretty damn scary. Why were there so many on the road?"

I could use that old joke here -- "They were headed for the other side of the road." lol

We've stopped the car at times to watch the tarantulas cross the road on the Apache Trail, here in Arizona, Bob. Also have stopped to watch the Gila Monsters (pronounced Heela monsters) do the same. Ugh, not to mention the Javelinas and Rattlesnakes. (Wisely, we don't stop for them)

But dragonflies? They are so pretty. I enjoy watching them flit around the rocks in a stream, but doubt if I'd enjoy them at 75 mph, though.

Keep us posted on those blue bottles! I'm interested, Paul.

Lorace