Homes in Wairarapa and Canterbury are being besieged by plagues of flies.
The recent warm, wet weather is attracting the cluster fly to rural areas causing home owners to take urgent action.
Loburn resident Steve Hitchon had been struggling with the insect for months.
“You couldn’t get past the wall of black flies and I thought this is a major problem.
“We’d try the old fly spray and it was getting worse and worse and worse,” Hitchon said.
Daniel Highman from Guaranteed Pest Control said the Hitchon home was “shocking” and one of the worst he’d seen.
“It’s been an influx this year and everyone seem to have them, even people who’ve never had them before,” Highman said.
Parasitologist Allen Heath said the cluster fly feeds on worms and is found more often in rural areas where there is more space, but in winter they head indoors to hibernate.
“It comes back to keeping them out of your house in the best way possible by blocking any entrance points, and if any do get in vacuum clean them up.
“Usually insecticide doesn’t seem to be that useful, because they are so full of fat,” said Heath.
Steve Hitchon got an exterminator in who did a roof treatment and an internal and external spray treatment.
“We still get the odd fly arrive, within five minutes of them coming in they’re dead,” Hitchon said.
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