THE village of Woolaston has been under siege for the last four weeks from a plague of flies which have blackened ceilings and driven householders crazy.
"It has been so bad people have been dismantling their cookers and scrubbing the bits in case they were attracting them," said Ray Crumpton, who runs the village Happy Shopper store with son-in-law Adrian 'Dan' Dare.
"They are quite relieved when they come in here and learn everyone else is in the same boat."
Ray said the village store had sold out of fly spray three times a week for the past four weeks – every time he went to the cash and carry the stock was cleared within hours.
"As for sticky fly papers, we haven't been able to get any of those for months," he said.
"We shut windows and doors and think we have killed every fly in the shop but they are back again within hours.
"We have had the environmental health people round here, everything, looking at the farms, but there's not a clue where they are coming from.
"Today (Tuesday) has been the first day when it has been relatively quiet – we don't know if it is the weather or what."