Fly infestation from apartment downstairs

Branoic

Myself and the wife are going crazy here - hopefully someone can offer some advise! Sorry in advance for the lenght of the post.

We own and live in an apartment on the second floor of an old converted convent (very nice, lots of historical character, etc etc). Before I go any further I should mention that the apartment complex (15 in total) is a bit odd in that whatever happened or whatever the reason, there is no management company, so there's no obvious central authority I can go to with my problem.

The apartment below us is managed by a letting agency, who have over the past two years had the habit of renting the place out to, how shall I put this, low life scum. The last tenants, after several months of constant noise, the stink of drugs, and various shady comings and goings at all hours, were eventually evicted three weeks ago when the Gardai turned up with people in masks and full body suits - apparently the apartment was in an absolute state.

Anway, since then our kitchen and bathroom (the only parts of our aparment directly above the one below) have been infested with literally thousands of little flies. I do not not exaggerate when I say we kill hundreds upon hundreds every single day. As mentioned, the complex is an old converted convent, so there's lots of nooks and crannies and cracks and whatever the flies can come up to us from the apartment below.

We've phoned and called in to the letting agents and their attitude has been to shrug and claim they removed a couple of bags of rubbish from the apartment so that's it. After no joy on the phone or calling in to them, we put our complaints in writing asking them to get fumigators in, but haven't heard back from them and it's getting completely unlivable in our apartment.

We can't cook, we can't have friends or family over, we spray fly killer every night before bed and hoover up hundreds of dead flies the next morning, we spay again before we go to work and hoover up again hundreds when we come home! The problem is clearly coming from the apartment below us because 1) we are very houseproud and keep our own property spotless - there is nothing here to attract them, 2) they only arrived in the past 3 weeks, since the power below was shut off and the tenants actually stopped living there, 3) the only affected areas of our apartment are the only areas directly above, and 4) even a quick glance in the windows below shows that the place is absolutely crawling with insects and the same type of flies we're getting.

All of this has been outlined in writing to the letting agents.

Who can we turn to? Is there some agency we can contact on health grounds? Is there any point in getting a solicitor to send them a letter, because would they be legally obliged to do anything? We really need to force them to get their apartment thoroughly fumigated.

Any advise appreciated.

DonJose

Get on to your local county council, they should have some pest control department which could look into this.

anonymousjunkie

Thats appalling. Can't believe the owner of that apartment would allow their property to fall into that sort of condition.

I've seen the type of fly you're talking about in a house I previously rented a room. For weeks the place had these small flies all over the place, kept going around killing them but the next day you got the same numbers all over again. We couldn't figure out where they were coming from until one day the owner (live there himself and a bit of a hoarder) decided to paint the kitchen and move a load of bags from behind the kitchen table, lo and behold a bag of rotten potatoes filled with the culprits.

sorella

These must have some kind of food waste to be breeding like this.

Left in the other apartment. Awful thought but that is how they live and multiply. When the food runs out, so do they.

Maybe a freezer left in there and with no power on? That would do it.

Maybe HSE can advise? Or PTRB?

pow wow

I had a similar thing happen years ago in England after the 'demise' of the guy who lived in the apartment upstairs. To this day I'm petrified of flies.

Even with fumigation it will take a while for them to die off so you're in for the long haul. Contact your council, speak to their environmental health department. There may be a small fee but they should come out and do it for you. In the meantime get busy with the sprays and citronella!

DennisSabre

Branoic wrote: »

Before I go any further I should mention that the apartment complex (15 in total) is a bit odd in that whatever happened or whatever the reason, there is no management company, so there's no obvious central authority I can go to with my problem.

The key to solving your problem is solving the above. The management company (MC) is the legal entity that has full responsibility for your complex. All of the owners are members. The company should be registered with the CRO (www.cro.ie). The MC usually appoints a managing agent (MA), a company that handles all the day to day things. If there's no MC, how is your development run? You should get your solicitor to look into this as a matter of urgency. In the Covenants of Lease agreed to by an owner, there's should be something about restraining from doing anything which may cause a nuisance to the MC or any of the owners or occupiers. The MA/MC should be informed so that they can act appropriately. That's why you need to investigate the management structure first. PM me if you wish to discuss further.

sorella

That is dreadful; same as the terrible smell we had coming up through the air vents once....

ellscurr wrote: »

I had a similar thing happen years ago in England after the 'demise' of the guy who lived in the apartment upstairs. To this day I'm petrified of flies.