What do houseflies really like?

Paul Cherubini paulcher at concentric.net
Wed Jul 21 20:27:50 EDT 1999


>
> If you are dealing with green bottleneck or blue bottleneck flies, they are
> attracted to natural gas, butane, methane and propane.  In fact, when they
> collect in an area in a conspicuous manner, it reliably indicates a gas
> leak.
 
You are right on Steve. I once visited an immaculately clean house that was massively
infested with bottleneck fly adults. No one could figure out where the flies were entering the
house. As a last ditch effort I went up on the roof and saw the flies swarming around a vent
pipe that led to the natural gas furnace inside the house. The flies were landing on the vent
and walking down the pipe and into the home from there. There was a gas leak in the
furnace, as you say,  that was attracting them--possibly enough of a gas concentration to
ignite. I'm glad I wasn't up there on the roof with a cigarette in my mouth!
 
Paul Cherubini


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