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By Guy Page
Residents along Lower Waterford Road in Waterford are calling on town officials to investigate a major fly infestation that kept families indoors for nearly two weeks in late May, the Caledonian-Record reports.
Several neighbors spoke at Monday’s Select Board meeting, describing swarms of flies so dense they couldn’t eat in their homes. Janet Bingham said her family had to eat meals in their car due to the overwhelming number of insects, calling the situation “intolerable and very unhealthy.”
The outbreak appeared shortly after a foul, burning odor was reported on May 16. Resident Priscilla Foster likened the smell to “rotting flesh” and said flies filled the area two days later.
Some residents suspect a nearby chicken farm—reportedly affiliated with Pete & Gerry’s Organic Eggs—may be responsible, citing recent manure spreading. However, they said the smell was far worse than typical farm activity. A representative from Pete & Gerry’s could not be reached for comment.
While some, like resident Kathy Hodgdon, suggested the flies may simply be part of a seasonal surge, others said this spring’s infestation was unlike anything they had experienced before.
“This is our third year here and it’s never happened before,” Foster said. “It nearly drove me from my home.” For more information read the report in today’s Caledonian-Record, the daily newspaper published in St. Johnsbury.
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Categories: Outdoors
I can vouch for a fact that chicken manure can gag a maggot a long ways away. As a young fella learning how to bid jobs down Wilmington way, a local man wanted his egg laying long chicken coop shoveled out, so I looked at it and bid a flat price, not knowing that the chicken poop was about a food deep, and when I cracked the top crust open…gasp…I shutter at the memory, but I got the job done and chalked it up to lessons learned, powerful manure. I could see it drawing every fly in a 50 mile radius, once it’s spread it’ll fade after a week or so, manure draws flies just like Montpelier draws regressive progressives.
When you live in the country you can expect seasonal infestations of certain insects like black flies. If this is related to farm activity which it may or may not, we do have right to farm laws in Vermont. Black flies like any other insect probably serve and ecological purpose and if there is a sudden infestation, then it is likely a feedback loop of nature re-estabilshing balance to the eco-system. From time to time there are infestations of other creatures such as chipmunks due to exceptionally good acorn production in a given year etc. and such a rise in small mammals may then give rise to higher larger predatory mammal population due to the excess food. This is an example of such a feedback loop. If you do not like the flies, then keep your doors closed and make sure all your house screens are in good repair. If you don’t like the flies in your house, then you can hang fly paper up etc. In the grand scheme of natural fluctuations in insect populations and feedback loops, perhaps
black flies lives matter after all.
This sounds more related to the chicken poop problem! That does smell like something dead is rotting.
There are ways to control flies. When we had dairy goats and raised meat chickens, we bought fly predator. These fed on fly larvae and prevented the hatch and thus subsequent generations. It worked great! Anyone with a commercial operation should absolutely employ this sort of prevention for their own sakes as well as in consideration for their neighbors.
Lord of the Flies? “In William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, the Lord of the Flies, which is a pig’s head mounted on a stick, is a powerful symbol representing the inner evil and savagery that can emerge within humans, particularly when confronted with a lack of structure and societal constraints. It also symbolizes Beelzebub or Satan, a force of temptation and evil. ”
Matthew 24:7 “For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.”
KSL.Com Utah May 15, 2025: “Millard County — Imagine driving down the road and hearing what sounds like a bowl of popcorn under your tires. Except it’s not popcorn.
It’s bugs. Thousands of them. In the small town of Holden, in Millard County, spring has officially arrived — and so have the Mormon crickets.”
Coincidences, happenstance, or signs and warnings? Free will to heed or ignore it.