I don't mind them as long as they don't get in my buttermilk.

If they do, do you say anything to them?

Don’t have them in the house since the dog passed a year ago, doors mostly stay shut. They are bad outside though

Pick up your dog poop and seal the trashcan lids. Reducing the fly population starts by not being nasty.

Jeff Goldbloom approves this message

old wives' tale

nonsense.

Not only are they bad they are huge

How does one get trash in the trash can if the lid is sealed?

Victor Fly Trap worked great last year for us. The last two years were pretty bad in our house and the backyard. So far this year we haven’t been bothered. I bought some of these traps off Amazon and they worked great. They definitely smell, though.

For the ones in the house, we would just use the hose attachment on the vacuum and suck the flies off the windows. I also bought some clear sticky paper fly traps and put them on the inside of the windows and they worked very well, too.

I don't have a lot of flies or skeeters but I have a ton of dragonflies this year .

Flies aren’t to bad around my place. The skeeters and them damn little nats are horrible.

Dragonflies are the best predators of all smaller insects, your statement makes perfect sense.

Yup . Small pond in the front yard is full of elodea and dragonfly nymphs . Don't have any Martins so the "snake doctors" are having a field day .

How's your Martin colony doing ?

Flies have been bad this week, had some type of black worm (army worm ?) come through in bunches last week, lightning bugs are the only bright spot.

We usually have Martins out the wazoo, but they have been few and far between this year. We even have houses out for them and no birds occupying them.