Though cluster flies are a clear indoor nuisance, you can relax a bit, since these flies are not breeding in your walls. And unlike horseflies, they have no interest in biting. In fact, if they were outdoors, cluster flies would not even bother to visit your picnics and social gatherings, preferring instead to spend their time sipping plant nectar. It’s tough to say how long infestations typically last because they hide in your home and when they emerge, they are simply trying to find a way out of your home. You may wonder why you keep getting cluster flies. It’s because cluster flies that have escaped your home like to return to the same house annually so it’s not typical that they eventually go away. The following tips will help you identify and learn how to get rid of cluster flies in your home.
Identifying Cluster Flies
How do you know if the winter fly is a cluster fly (Pollenia rudis) or some other large fly? The cluster fly can be distinguished from the house fly in several ways:
Body characteristics: A cluster fly is a bit larger than a housefly and has a black/silvery-black checkered body. Additionally, they have short golden or yellowish hairs on their lower bodies that you would not find on a house fly.Sluggish movement: The cluster fly will fly around the home but at a less frantic pace than that of the house fly.Overlapped wings: When at rest, the cluster fly will overlap its wings; the house fly’s wings remain separate.Clustering at windows: If there is a large population of cluster flies, they tend to cluster along windows or inside attics and usually in little-used areas on warm, sunny days.
These flies normally live outdoors and are most likely to appear in the spring and fall. But overwintering cluster flies can emerge into homes throughout the winter. Cluster flies don’t cause much of a problem beyond annoyance. They are not known to damage structures, and they do not reproduce inside the home. However, they can leave tiny dots of excrement where they cluster, and large numbers can be a significant nuisance within a home.
4 Ways to Get Rid of Cluster Flies
Swat or Vacuum the Visible Flies
Once cluster flies enter a building to harbor within the walls or buzz around rooms, control methods are limited. Although insecticides can kill the flies harboring within walls, it’s best to avoid these because large numbers of dead or dying flies can attract secondary pests, such as beetles and rodents. There’s a more natural way to get rid of cluster flies (and it’s a great workout, too). Because the flies are sluggish, it is usually fairly easy to swat or vacuum those that find their way indoors. But, unfortunately, just as you get rid of these, more are likely to emerge, causing an ongoing process of swatting, vacuuming, and exasperation. But eventually, you will have killed most of them and the rest will die while they are trying to find a way out of your home. This could be one of the more effective natural ways to stop cluster flies from returning to your home.
Use Traps or Flypaper
Cluster flies are fairly easy to trap using flypaper or sticky traps, or by mixing a sweet water solution in a jar with a lid opening just large enough for the flies to enter. Like any flies, cluster flies are attracted to sweets (and rotting food). Make sure to empty the jar regularly.
Use an Approved Indoor Pesticide
For indoor use, an insect spray containing pyrethrins, which is based on an extract from chrysanthemum flowers, will kill cluster flies quickly. Pyrethrins are found in a number of commercial products. Use them lightly, aiming directly at the flies. Pyrethrins aren’t completely harmless—they are toxic to fish, so try to keep them out of water supplies—but they are low in toxicity to humans and other mammals. Make sure you are buying a product listed as containing pyrethrins, not pyrethroids, which are synthetic versions.
Seal Interior Cracks and Gaps
The flies that have found shelter in walls by entering through exterior cracks and crevices can’t become an indoor annoyance unless there are also gaps on the interior walls. The smallest cracks along window and door frames and along baseboards offer an avenue through which the flies can enter indoor rooms. Continue your efforts to get rid of cluster flies and stop them from returning by caulking or otherwise filling all cracks and crevices in the home’s interior wall surfaces, including:
Around doors and windowsAround electrical outletsAround vent registers.At the joints between baseboards and flooring
These methods will prevent new flies from emerging as you kill the ones already in your home.
What Causes Cluster Flies?
Cluster flies enter your home for a very simple reason: They are seeking warmth to survive the cold winter months. These are mostly outdoor insects that lay eggs in the soil, which hatch into larvae that feed on earthworms. They enter homes and other warm buildings as fall begins to turn cold, simply to survive the winter. These insects don’t reproduce in your walls or your home, nor are they specifically seeking food, as are standard houseflies. Homes that are tightly weather-sealed with good insect screens on windows and screen doors have minimal trouble with cluster flies, and these insects are generally not an indoor problem in warm southern climates, where the flies remain outdoors year-round.
How to Prevent Cluster Flies
Preventing cluster flies is largely a matter of sealing gaps and cracks on the walls and foundation of your home so that the flies won’t have access to warm hiding places. The west and south sides of a building are where cluster flies most often enter. Make sure to seal gaps around exterior vents, along rooflines, water spigots, and other pipe entries, and along foundation sill plates. Make sure the windows you use for ventilation are fitted with insect screens in good condition, that the windows and doors are tight-fitting, and that exterior moldings are well caulked. If your infestations are severe, you can have a residual pyrethroid-based insecticide applied on the outside walls in late summer and early fall, as cluster flies are preparing to hibernate. This is usually a job for a professional exterminator.
Cluster Flies vs. House Flies
Though similar in appearance, cluster flies (Pollenia rudis) are slightly larger than standard houseflies (Musca domestica)—up to 1/2 inch in length vs. the 1/4 inch for a housefly. Cluster flies will usually be louder insects, with an audible buzzing sound, and they very often cluster on glass windows or walls heated by the sun. Compared to a housefly, which flies much of the time, cluster flies are relatively sluggish, often found buzzing as they creep along wall or window surfaces. Cluster flies are most likely to appear in the early spring as the sun begins to heat western and southern walls and tend to disappear to the outdoors as warm summer weather appears and they seek plants to feed on and outdoor soil in which to lay eggs. Houseflies, on the other hand, reach their peak of indoor activity during the warmest part of summer.
