Tuesday, August 11, 2009

i know an old lady who swallowed a fly....

On Sunday morning, I was greeted downstairs by the buzz of flies. There were about 30 on the windows. Since we have screens on the windows, I figured that Jose left a door open too long or something on Saturday. I spent the morning on a killing rampage...sucking them up in my handy vacuum cleaner.

Monday morning, there were a few stragglers, but I killed those too.

But last night, when I got home from work, there were about 25 more!

I spent about an hour looking like a crazy person running around killing them all with my make shift fly-swatter -- a dish towel. Even Charlie looked at me funny and ran upstairs to hide during my killing spree.

I was perplexed. Where were they coming from? We have screens, the doors stay shut...so there's really no way for them to enter through any of the windows or doors. I keep everything clean and sanitized, and the trash is kept in a container with a tight lid (...due to my phobia of the cockroaches, remember?)

So of course, I googled it.

I didn't find anything that helped me understand where they were coming from or why there were so many. I just found info that made me hate them even more...

Did you know that flies "spit out saliva on solid foods to predigest it, and then suck it back in?" *cringe* And "because of their high intake of food, they deposit feces constantly, one of the factors that makes the insect a dangerous carrier of pathogens?" *gag*

I have now developed a phobia-like need to kill all flies that cross my path.

Please, please, pleeeasse....someone tell me where they are coming from and how to keep them away!!

2 comments:

Live Simply Love Strongly said...

We have actually had a similar problem here at our house. It started out with just 25-30 a day, and I was going after them like a crazy woman. Then the number started growing...until it was up to hundreds a day. It just about drove me crazy. My husband was supposed to take care of it, but between running a business and remodeling our new house, he was overwhelmed himself...and the situation remained unresolved for some time. Finally though when the numbers of flies got up there, I just couldn't cope anymore and INSISTED he fix it NOW. We had a small gap between the floor and wall they were getting in through, and when that was filled, the problem was resolved. I feel for you.

Honduras Sprout said...

something kind of similar happened to me. Because flies lay eggs and they can be preserved for a very long time until the conditions are ripe they could have been eggs lying in wait just waiting to hatch.

It happened in my old house. But fortunately it happened in the basement. It was like some kind of twilight zone experience with the buzzing of flies. I gave up trying to kill them and just closed the door and within a few days they all keeled over with basically nothing to eat down there. I thought about smoking them out...but with a cat and a little girl - I decided no on that.

Yes, flies are disgusting. We have a fly zapper that I bought my husband because he is almost phobic about them too. I like the idea about the vacuum. I have one of those too here! Hope your fly problem gets resolved soon!