Unwelcome visitors...

[Craig Mackay]

The other day a friend gave me a few tomato plants which seems to have either attracted or came with phorid flies. As well as disposing of the plants what else can I do to get rid of them? Are fly strips effective? They're only in the kitchen just now and haven't found their way to the spider room yet so I wanna get this dealt with before they find them.

Cheers
Craig

[Colin D Wilson]

Are they Phorids or just "fruit flies" Craig...either way you'll want rid of course.
I find the square (yellow) fly pads quite good, they have an attractant in them apparently...got mine from a local "£" store in bags of four.

Alternatively you could have a decent amount of Pholcids and Steatoda in your house...no flies get past those (mind you the Steatoda have to be careful too with Pholcids wandering around.... a "quick easy lunch" they can end up as unfortunately)

[Craig Mackay]

Yeah, it seems they're definately phorid flies. Hunched backs, and scuttling around rather than flying when disturbed etc. I got rid of the plants and killed as many as I could get my hands on and gave the kitchen a good clean and there are only a few kicking around now so I'll get some fly pads and see if that gets rid of the rest. I've noticed a fair few of our arachnid friends have came out of hiding to have a feast though. The more the merrier, lol!

[mary walters]

Our house is full of them, we have a leccy thing in the kitchen and spider room, plus the big yellow sticky pads everywhere else.

[Rich.Harrington]

Best method ive known is put up a bit of fly paper then stick on a cricket to it. The dead cricket attracts the flies which get stuck and inturn attract more flies.

[Maria Clarke]

is it a good idea to have these fly papers around anyway, just in case?
I had a few winged creatures flying around while the windwows were open during the hot weather, and it seemed all my T's were ready and waiting for a feast....

[Rich.Harrington]

Fly paper is handy but if your eco friendly then go organic and throw a bunch of house spiders up in the corners, can be sure to decimate your fly problem in a week or two.

[Craig Mackay]

Cheers for the replies. I like the idea about the dead cricket but I'm not sure the missus will, lol! I'd say unless it becomes a big problem then a few normal flies are fine and it's best to leave them to the spiders. It's only if they become a pest that they need to be dealt with. I've got rid of the majority and the spiders have got the rest so looks like it's gonna be ok