Selfsufficientish.com

Hello all
my house and garden is being plagued by flies. I am not too bothered about them in the garden but they are driving me made in the house. They are small black flies rather than blue bottle type things. Has anyone got any ideas for natural repellant???

I am being careful about not leaving food out, am getting a beady curtain thing for the back door as this is where they seem to come in whilst I am out in the garden and I have a very effective swat!

Ideas welcome!

Elder flower leaves are a good repellant although I havent tried it myself.
Might be a good idea to investigate why there are so many flies, could there be something near by that could be attracting the them?

We have a stupid recycling scheme whereby food waste is put into a HUGE wheelybin, left to rot for a week then the Bin men come and pick it up but the bin is never emptied properly and it stinks.

The last two summers since they brought in this *wonderful* new scheme in the flies have been absolutely awful!

Citronella is your best bet apparently but my Mom swears by Lavender...

Hope you get your problem sorted and I hope we can too because it's horrible

Citronella candles are easy and cheap, but anything with a citrusy smell will help - pot pourri made from old oranges/lemons/limes, even lemon balm (which is in the mint family, and just as prolific, easy to grow from seed in semi-shade, so you can have a constant supply) strung up around the door/window frames will help. And you can put it in a nice G+T if you've run out of real lemon

Try a few drops of lavendar essential oil in some hot water. Also put some on yourself.

We bought carniverous plants 2x pitcher plants and a venus fly trap, seems to keep the numbers down

Tansy is also a traditional insect repellent, but unless you're already growing it, it may be difficult to come by.

Insects in general dislike the lemony oils (as already mentioned), peppermint and clove (the last 2 will also deter moths and ants).

check for dead horses, nasty sheds, etc.
have you had the property long? is it a problem every year?

We use good old fashioned fly paper strips. You can pin them to anything and they are so sticky, work brilliantly. Robert Dyas shops do them, B&Q, Homebase.

We just stick them up and replace them when covered in flies! do not have any problems, except forgetting where they are and accidentally touching them, then you get the stuff on fingers! Hope that helps

Thanks for the tips... I have put up some sticky papers altho my ma nearly got it stuck to her head, Yuck! The flies seem to mainly be buzzing around a large cherry tree in the front garden. I have got one of those bag type fly traps that you fill with water and it has foul smelling substance in it. I have hung this in the tree in the hope they will end up there rather than my house! I have been burning essential oils in the house too... fingers crossed they clear off!

hmm, cherries, that'll be it.
Damn, you've just reminded me about our crop...

When I was at my local plant nursery the other day, they have these wicked little sticky fly papers that you stick to the sides of top of your green house. i was amazed by it. i hope your fly problem Has Cleared up!

Yes, 'leap in woman" can reply to this one,
I have dogs and chickens, and although I clean up twice a day the flys are a big problem, I did some internet research an came up with 'red top fly catcher' its a plastic hang up trap with a sachet of yeast based attractant, Boy does it work you place it 5 meters from the problem area and leave it, mine has been up for two months and is full of dead flies, breaking the blow flies four week breeding season, it does start to stink when full, but you empty it into the compost heap and add a refill, it costs about a tenner for one or £16,00 for two, lasts about 3 months depending on the size of the fly problem?,
Our garden is now relatively free from blue bottles and blow flies, all I want now are nija frogs who can leap 15 foot and catch the gnats and mozies

I can second the "fly trap" recomendation. We were getting overrun and put one up between house and garden and it seems to get 90% of them. Very few getting in here to be swatted. The one we found is a plastic jar with funnel shaped entrance holes and stinky yeast based bait.

DeneciePie

We had a problem with flies once upon a time - turned out to be cluster flies. AWFUL - I remember putting washing out to dry and it being covered in the blighters. They attract each other by pheromones and ours were living in the roof space, climbing in under the tiles YUCK.