ST. FRANCIS, Maine — A Canadian chicken farm may be the source of a fly infestation wreaking havoc for the people of St. Francis.
Residents of the small border town are fed up with swarms of flies that have invaded their homes and yards and taken the fun out of their summers for the past two years. Unable to find the source of the infestation in Maine, residents are looking across the river to Canada for help with a solution.
“My porch is infested,” Karen Gagnon, 61, said. “The screens are full. I kill flies five to six times a day and have to vacuum them up. It’s horrible. It’s so gross. Fly poop everywhere.”
She said her family cannot sit on the porch or cook outside, and that the flies only leave when winter comes.
St. Francis Selectman Mary Landry said the town has been dealing with fly infestations on and off since 2012.
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“It seemed to improve after 2014 but last year, all hell broke loose again,” she said.
Jake Harvey, 42, who lives about two miles north of Landry, said it’s a daily battle.
“When we make meals we need to make sure everything stays covered. We roam the house regularly with fly swatters killing the ones that make it in. Our garbage cans are in our garage and on Saturday when we bring them to the dump there are at least 6 inches of maggots in the bottom of them,” Harvey said.
In an effort to mitigate the number of flies that enter his family home, Harvey utilizes disposable fly trap bags, which capture up to 40,000 flies each.
“We have four bags around the property. They last about two or three days and they need to be replaced because they are literally full,” he said.
Landry said town officials searched for any possible local source of the fly infestation but came up empty-handed. She suspects a Canadian chicken farm located just across the St. John River from St. Francis to be the cause.
At Landry’s request, Bill Sheehan, director of the Presque Isle Office of the Maine Department of Environmental Protection, visited St. Francis on Wednesday.
Sheehan stressed that he is no fly expert, but said he has investigated his share of fly infestations.
“I’ve never seen any other place as severe as up in St. Francis,” Sheehan said.
While in St. Francis, Sheehan worked his way up the river and could find nothing on the U.S. side of the border, or in the low lying river itself, that could be generating the flies.
Sheehan said he could see the Canadian chicken farm from across the river.
“It is likely that’s the source,” Sheehan said. “That is speculation and based on geography, and somebody else needs to confirm it.”
The DEP does not have any direct way of resolving the issue of the fly infestation, but Sheehan said he reached out to his counterparts in Canada, who happen to be on vacation this week.
Sheehan also contacted the office of Sen. Angus King.
“We all know each other up here so we all try to work together,” Sheehan said. “I think we will find a resolution.”
That resolution cannot come fast enough for the people of St. Francis.
“It sounds petty. I mean everyone deals with flies. But until you’ve experienced this, really, you wouldn’t believe it,” Harvey said.
Sheehan believes it, especially since he left the windows open to his vehicle while in St. Francis Wednesday.
“I brought home a good load of flies in my pickup truck,” he said. “Even this morning [Thursday] when driving to work, there were lots of flies inside my truck. It’s a significant nuisance for sure.”