I don’t know where they’re coming from but all of a sudden there are hundreds of giant blow flies in my house! I’m afraid they came from a dead mouse. I set out some mouse poison after seeing their poo in my garage. After a few days I cleaned up everything and the bait was gone. No new mouse poo was found but now I have flies. Shouldn’t I smell the dead mouse somehere? This is gross.
Blow flies are attracted to decaying flesh like dead mice or dead rats. And when using any kind of mouse killer, there is always a chance they’ll die somewhere in the home. This usually leads to a bad smell and if the dead mouse isn’t removed, MAGGOTS and BLOW FLIES.
For now, try to isolate where you think the body might be. It’s probably in the garage or under something just out of sight. Mice will usually seek what they feel is a safe place when sick. Being able to remove the carcass with help eliminate the Blow Flies as well as any odor.
To control the Blow Flies, use one of the products listed in our article. The most popular for large open areas is the PT-565 SPACE SPRAY. You can use it as needed and it can be applied anywhere in the home. It’s important that you kill the flies you see since they want to do nothing other than mate and lay eggs. This will cause the problem to persist.
But before you kill them all, you may want to spend a little time tracking their flying paths. Blow flies have a great sense of smell and can be used to track a path way to the dead animal that’s feeding them. Many times you’ll find them entering a crack that leads to a void in the wall. Maybe you’ll see them wanting to get into your garage or some other room. So just watching them fly can really help locate the reason they’re here in the first place.
Lastly, if an odor does ever develop, get some NNZ. Used in the areas where the odor is present, NNZ works great at neutralizing it so the problem can be eliminated.
Here are direct links to the information and products listed above:
Maggots: http://bugspray.com/article/maggots.html
Blow Flies: http://bugspray.com/blow-flies.html
PT-565: http://www.bugspraycart.com/insecticide/aerosol/pt-565-xlo
jill says
I woke up this morning and found 12 maggots crawling on the tiles in my kitchen/living room floor. My house is spotless and I spray blow flies as soon as they come in the house and wipe up there eggs if they have laid any. I don’t know how they have got to the larvae stage as there is nothing on my floors for them to feed on and it is worrying me. I moved everything and vacuumed and washed the floor. Do you think that this is just a once off thing? I have never had this happen before.
Tech Support says
Jill,
Its very odd that we have a customer state that they “spray blow flies as soon as they come in”. This implies you not only have an ongoing problem but that the problem is getting “inside” the home. Here in GA, I can find blow flies outside my home if I place something in the yard like food. And if I find animal droppings from a deer or rabbit, there might be some around. But in general, my regular treatments keep them at bay so they’re hard to see unless you intentionally try to lure them around.
But in scenario it sounds like they are always active. And if thats true, you need to start protecting the outside of the home. Good treatments for outside include our Fly Trap and Maxforce Fly Spray.
The trap is easy to deploy and if you set a few out in the yard, it will no doubt collect any foraging around your property. By trapping any around the home, the odds of any getting inside to lay eggs will be dramatically reduced.
Flies Be Gone: http://www.bugspraycart.com/traps/fly/flies-b-gone-disposable-fly-trap
For added protection, spraying the home with the Maxforce will insure they die if they try to get inside.
Fly Spot Bait: http://www.bugspraycart.com/bait/granule/maxforce-fly-spot-bait-pk
Blow flies aren’t “smart” so they don’t consciously decide where to lay eggs. This means if you have them active in the yard, they’ll be laying eggs there as well as on the home and inside the home if they get inside. And the only way to protect the home from having this happen inside is to treat the outside. The goal is to diminish the active population because if you reduce the amount outside enough, there won’t be any around to get inside.
More information on this pest can be found here:
Blow Flies: http://bugspray.com/blow-flies.html
Technical Support
U-Spray Bugspray
http://www.bugspray.com
1-800-877-7290