The Cluster Fly

29 Aug 2018,   posted by japco

“Don’t wait too long to have these treatments or it will be too late and they will have already gained entry into your home”.

Cluster Fly Image

The Cluster fly is named due to their tendency of clustering together in groups when they overwinter indoors. If you have a cluster fly problem, you will see them on warm sunny days in the winter and spring clustering in groups on your windows. They may awaken in a confused state thinking it is spring. Once active in the winter or spring, they are a nuisance day and night, found buzzing and congregating at windows and lamps as they try to return outdoors to nature.

Flies on windows

They enter structures in the fall with the intention of overwintering in your warm house, preferring attics, structural voids, closets, windowsills, underneath clothes, picture frames, behind curtains, and other areas that are dark and protected.

Flies in the attic during winter

The Cluster Fly Description
They are larger than the house fly. One of the distinguishing factors is while they are at rest both of their wings will overlap across the abdomen. They are non-metallic gray, lack stripes on the thorax and have yellow or golden hairs on the top, behind the head, and around the base of the wings. The flies’ mate in the spring and the females lay their eggs in the soil. The eggs hatch in three days, and the larvae burrow into the bodies of earthworms where they develop. Development (egg to adult) requires 27-39 days. The female will stop laying eggs in late August and September to seek hiding places to overwinter. Usually there are four generations per year.

Control

“The exterior treatment is the critical treatment to eliminate the problem before they gain entry into your home”.

Once they have already penetrated a structure, control can be quite difficult. Treatments after the flies have entered the structure can reduce populations but are unlikely to eliminate them. These flies are quite annoying and can be numerous (hundreds to thousands) but they do not cause damage or transmit disease. If a Cluster fly problem gets out of hand over a period of time it can render a home almost uninhabitable with dead flies all over. They can swarm in large numbers and gather around windows in unsightly masses. This also causes a problem with a secondary pest problem- The Larder beetle that will show up to feed off of the dead cluster fly carcass.

In the Spring and summer, they will emerge and flee the structure altogether and will come back again in the early fall.

“At JAPCO we have an on-call list of customers that we call to ensure they are serviced at the right time for their cluster fly treatment to be effective. The fall service is critical for success and is temperature dependent. Our customer service representatives are well versed with the know how to know when to schedule this service for you”.

Call us today and ask to be placed on our Cluster fly on-call list.

Tips

  • Sealing cracks and crevices and other entry points into the structure.
  • Repair damaged screens on doors and windows.
  • Use a vacuum to vacuum up live cluster flies.
  • Use a vacuum to vacuum up dead cluster flies to eliminate the risk of having a secondary pest problem with the larder beetle and larder beetle larva.
  • Hire a professional pest control company to eliminate the problem in the fall before they gain entry into your home.