Help! We've got a dead something in our attic and our house if full of flies. We have a baby. What do we do?!

Question

we have something dead in our attic space. the house is full of blue bottle type flies and we have a one year old. we don't know what to do about it. any ideas welcome. we live in the UK.

Answer 1

Hire a handyman or exterminator to go get it out, or get up there and get it out yourself. Chances are it will rot within a few days/weeks and your problem will be over, but till then, you'll have to live with your flies and a possible stench.

Answer 2

We had a similar problem with something (probably a bird) which fell down the chimney into the fireplace behind a fixed gas fire and died. Obviously, maggots started feeding on it and then hatched. By the time I was first aware of it, there were about 50 bluebottles in the room all congregating on the bay windows, not flying about the room (luckily door could be kept closed and we didn't need to use the room). It was horrific. I opened all the top windows and coaxed them out. I rang the local Council for advice and was told that this would last for about a week until carcase was consumed and that best way to proceed was to repeat what I'd done and grin and bear it for the week. Sure enough, for a week I "exiled" the flies about 3 times a day until I could see that the problem was dying down. I then hung up some sticky fly-papers (from Homebase) which caught the remaining few stragglers. Happy to say we haven't been bothered since.
IMPORTANT: I was glad I didn't use fly spray as it was actually better to have live flies which were easy to see and banish via the window, rather than have dead flies dropping all over the place (behind furniture, on top of pelmets, on furnishings, etc.) and me having to find them and remove them.
If I were you, if you are able to access the attic space easily, I would be brave (or find someone who's brave) and try to find and remove the offending carcase (it's most likely a squirrel as they do find their way into the eaves of a roof). If there are windows, open them (don't leave them unattended, though!) and try to coax out any flies. Keep other room doors closed.
DON'T use fly spray (see above). Once the flies are gone completely you can do a thorough cleaning/disinfecting. Also worth getting a builder/roofer to check and seal up any gaps where squirrels/birds could enter.
Naturally, you are concerned for your baby. Is there any chance that for this week your baby could stay with, say, grandparents?
I know it looks horrific at the moment, but it won't last long. Honestly.

Answer 3

It's very likely to be dangerous, although only a certified Moisture/Mold Assessor can be trusted to determine just "how" dangerous it really is. Certainly, your house won't pass a building inspection as long as it's there. The mold was created in your attic by excess moisture (not using your bath &/or kitchen fans enough, uncovered fish tanks, too many indoor house plants, etc.) in your home being drawn up into your attic (air leakage by-passes/chaseways in the attic floor, such as around plumbing stacks, your masonry chimney, wire holes, open topped partition walls, etc., or bath/kitchen fans not vented out of your attic) where it cannot escape from an under-ventilated attic (the moisture has no where to go but onto the cold underside of your roof decking). Since mold loves to feast on your wood decking, it's quite content to stay there and multiply into a huge mess. How to get rid of it? I'd call a professional. I've heard that bleach will do the trick, but I've also heard that on some molds the bleach will cause the mold to microscopically explode into smaller spores that makes the situation worse. Check your phone book for professional cleaners that specialize in flood damage or the like. It may cost more, but if the mold comes back, so do the cleaners!

Answer 4

Firstly telephone Environmental Health - they will send an operative out to remove the offending dead carcass.
As the carcass has rotted a fly must have laid it's eggs, which is why you have so many blue bottles.

Use a fly spray when baby is not in the room, and obviously tidy the mess up as and when you need to.

Keep a netting over the babies cot in the meantime - they are cheap enough to buy and you will probably get much use out of it during the summer months to keep the midges off your baby whilst it is sleeping.

Sorry there is no quick fix, but if and when you find out where the 'animal' got in make sure you block the hole so nothing else can wander into your loft area.

Answer 5

Well, first I would look in the attic to see what is up there dead and get it out of there! I would open up the windows and disinfect everything, remove all trash from the house so the flies have no place to go. If you don't want to spray pesticides, get some fly paper and hang it all over the place. If that doesn't work, take the baby to a relative's house and call the exterminator.

Answer 6

Unfortunately, someone will have to go in to the attic and get whatever it is out. After that, you need to scrub the area with bleach water to get any fluids cleaned up that the flies will still be attracted to and I would suggest putting up fly paper. Once the carcass is gone, and the area clean you should see them decrease. For future reference to keep flies at bay, Some people swear that a zip-lock bag filled half-way with water and attached over entry-ways will repel flies. It has something to do with the way the water refracts the light. You can also use Citronella candles. Good luck!

Answer 7

Does it smell bad? Go up in the attic with a shovel and locate whatever is causing the smell. Might be best to pick a cold day.

It could also be a dead mouse or rat in the walls or behind the fridge or behind furniture. If it smells really bad, I'm guessing a good house cleaning will locate some dead mice, especially, if you've put out poison for them.

Answer 8

Where there are flies there are a heap of maggots. You HAVE to get the dead animal out of your attic immediately before you have maggots crawling all over your home and onto your baby. A maggot can travel GREAT distances and squeeze into small places.

If I were you I would get out of the house.. hire someone immediately and not return until an exterminator has cleared the home of pests.

Answer 9

LOL! Start with a garbage bag and remove the dead "something" from your home. If you're impatient for the flies to die off, go out and purchase some fly-paper from your home and garden store.

And, of course, don't forget to sanitize the area where the "something" died!

The baby will be just fine. The mommy might need a good hot bath and some TLC for awhile though!

Good luck!

Answer 10

we had the same thing behind our fire but could find no dead thing only flies it was like a swarm, get some tins of fly killer and blast through a small gap in the loft hatch and opening it a bit wider after a couple of minutes and spray it all around then about 10 minutes later check them probably a few left kill them off then vacum the flies up if it seems to have done the trick nextday spray around the loft again just in case then spray disenfectant.

Answer 11

the sooner you go up there the sooner you can take what´s dead out. The longer you leave it the more flies you will have . once they start laying their egg´s . It might be a dead bird or a mouse . Find someone quick , and now that the warm weather is on It´s way thing´s will only become worse. Good Luck