I feel like I am paying some kind of penance over here. Or maybe I am dealing with a history of bad dog owners in this house and/or bad dog owner neighbors?
I live in Los Angeles and have a tiny yard -- like 18' x 18' or so. It has grass, but the grass is not very healthy. I mow it, but really it is some combination of different kinds of grass and probably some weeds, too.
For the past 6 or so months, I have been cleaning up after dogs in the backyard about 3x/week. Well, the flies have always been bad out back but this summer they were darn near intolerable. Now, I clean up within 10 minutes of poop. Really trying to get the fly population down here.
When I went out of town, I hung 3 disposable bag-type fly traps out back and came home to 2 of them FULL of dead flies -- I mean like horror movie levels of dead flies. It was really traumatizing.
I left more traps for a few weeks, hoping to kill flies through a lifecycle/egg hatching or whatever and be done with it. The traps have been gone for 1 week now and the flies are still really bad -- maybe as bad as ever! I know the people who lived here before didn't do a very good job of cleaning up after the dogs. But, really by now I would have though the problem would be more or less resolved. The flies stay low -- buzzing around the grass for the most part. If I miss a poop, I see more flies there, but they still continue to overpopulate the yard even when there is no poop whatsoever.
Ideas? Suggestions? I really do try to be sanitary and a good dog owner. I just can't get rid of the darned things! Can't even seem to reduce them! I'm thinking of calling Afred Hitchcock to make a horror film!
I live in Los Angeles and have a tiny yard -- like 18' x 18' or so. It has grass, but the grass is not very healthy. I mow it, but really it is some combination of different kinds of grass and probably some weeds, too.
For the past 6 or so months, I have been cleaning up after dogs in the backyard about 3x/week. Well, the flies have always been bad out back but this summer they were darn near intolerable. Now, I clean up within 10 minutes of poop. Really trying to get the fly population down here.
When I went out of town, I hung 3 disposable bag-type fly traps out back and came home to 2 of them FULL of dead flies -- I mean like horror movie levels of dead flies. It was really traumatizing.
I left more traps for a few weeks, hoping to kill flies through a lifecycle/egg hatching or whatever and be done with it. The traps have been gone for 1 week now and the flies are still really bad -- maybe as bad as ever! I know the people who lived here before didn't do a very good job of cleaning up after the dogs. But, really by now I would have though the problem would be more or less resolved. The flies stay low -- buzzing around the grass for the most part. If I miss a poop, I see more flies there, but they still continue to overpopulate the yard even when there is no poop whatsoever.
Ideas? Suggestions? I really do try to be sanitary and a good dog owner. I just can't get rid of the darned things! Can't even seem to reduce them! I'm thinking of calling Afred Hitchcock to make a horror film!
