Are there any plants that repel flys? My new house seems to be a haven for them.

I can’t imagine flies consider anything to be repellent. I think Lavender is a general insect repellent and theres a list of natural insect repellents here – although you’ll see few of them mention flies.

If the house is new / new to you and has been unheated for a while then putting the heating on might have caused hibernating bugs to think its spring.

I stayed in a self catering cottage out of season a few years back and it hadn’t been booked out for a while. Switched the heating on and with a few hours things started to get a bit Amityville as dozens and dozens of flies started appearing. It was fine after a day or two though.

Planting stuff outside here (tomatoes etc) and basil was recommended to keep insects away. Seems to have worked as despite being next door to a swamp (sorry mashland habitat) we’ve had good tomatoes, no pests either. Strawberries have been fine too, but pretty poor size it seems.

Read as pants, then had an alarming vision of fighting against a pair of trousers whilst trying to do ones flies up.