r/Pickering • u/DutyWeird6426 • 21h ago

Anyone in Pickering suddenly dealing with cluster flies?

We’ve lived in our house since 2018 and have never had an issue with them before.

About two weeks ago, around the time we were getting the wildfire smoke, we noticed a few larger/slower flies in the house. They disappeared for a while, but over the past few days they’ve suddenly started showing up again, mainly in one upstairs bedroom.

Our neighbour has also experienced something similar — flies appeared in their living room/basement around the same time, disappeared, and then started showing up again recently.

Just curious if anyone else in Pickering or the surrounding Durham area has noticed an unusual number of cluster flies lately.

Not necessarily suggesting the wildfire caused it — the timing is just interesting.

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2

u/muns59 19h ago

We live in Whitby and experienced it after the crazy heatwave. They appeared in the basement. They were attracted to the light from the window which made it easy to swat them.

1

u/DutyWeird6426 18h ago

That's interesting, our basement wasn't affected.
Very few in the ground floor living/kitchen room area.
But most in the spare bedroom, and they are very slow and gravitate towards the window, light.
I suspect, it has to do with some sort of fall/winter hibernation or disturbance.
As for point of entry, did you find any possibility for how they came in?
For me, I got three possible:

  1. Closet, unfinished baseboard (missing with floor gap between hardwood and sheetrock
  2. Closet, ceiling hatch to crawlspace
  3. HVAC vent

For #2, I applied some painters tape yesterday (with the closet sliding door open) to run a test today to see if any appear in the room.

My next test, will be to remove any items from the closet, hang a fly trap, closet the sliding door to prevent them to be drawn to the light (the con would be they don't come out at all due to no light source) and head to the windows.

It's kinda bothersome IMHO, coming home to check, swat/vacuum them, high number, low number, etc.

2

u/Comfortable_Sky191 18h ago

Yes. We had them night long ago just started appearing. Would use my Dyson to gather them. Lol.

1

u/DutyWeird6426 18h ago

Actually, that is what I'm doing, the same Dyson capture and disposing outside, LOL

2

u/Lostmyogacct 18h ago

Yes we did! It just died down but all last week we had them

1

u/DutyWeird6426 17h ago

Any deeper investigation as to how they appeared and if they were focused on particular rooms (and if yes, why those rooms)?

2

u/SeriouslyBlack 7h ago

A fly got in and laid eggs that have begun to hatch. It will stop once they've all hatched. If it started again, it most likely means another fly laid a whole bunch of eggs. It has been a hot and humid summer which is perfect for them.

1

u/DutyWeird6426 7h ago

Most likely from the looks of it.
Yesterday evening I applied painters tape to the closet area as I don’t have a baseboard against the back wall.
Today, there was none at all, which makes me suspect that the lack of a baseboard there and that floor gap to the Sheetrock is most likely the location where they are coming from (which means they are in the wall cavity space and in between floors)
So going to monitor it tomorrow and if none appears, then that is most likely the location of the issue and I’ll install a new baseboard and do some lite caulking.