PHOENIX — >>Editor's note: A previous version of this story identified the insects as moths.
A pesky little insect is swarming a Phoenix neighborhood.
Caddisflies have taken over homes and businesses lining the Arizona Canal near Arcadia Drive and Indian School Road. These moth-like insects spend their larval stage in water and emerge en masse in the spring and fall.
“This year has been really quite bad," Rakesh Patel, who lives in the area said.
Rakesh and Raju Patel have tried everything, but they can't seem to expel the swarms of caddisflies insects from invading their yard.
“The quantities and the number is so vast that you just can’t stop it," Rakesh Patel said. “It’s like walking through a dust storm and the worst days it really is. You can’t see in front of you.”
The couple said the issue started a couple of months ago.
“We see the most in the morning, then sundown, and then it shifts to the front of the house during the day," Raju Patel said.
Millions of caddisflies doing nothing but flying around.
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“To the point where we just shut the back door and don’t use the backyard," Raju Patel said.
Kelly Richers, a board member with the Wedge Entomological Research Foundation, told 12News the rain is partially to blame.
“The 'moths' are able to reach adulthood this year much more propitiously than they have in the past," Richers said.
He said the caddisflies will likely die off within the next few weeks.
“Many of these [caddisflies] don’t even have mouthparts. They don’t exist to eat as adults. They’re just there to breed and as soon as they have that opportunity than they will lay their eggs and not be around anymore," Richers said.
The Patels said the problem gets worse every year.
“We don’t want to eradicate them. It’s just more about managing the numbers," Raju Patel said.
SRP, the company that manages the Arizona Canal, told 12News they work to reduce the larvae by scraping the sides and bottom of the canal.
They also added 4,000 catfish, a natural predator of caddisflies, to reduce the larvae.
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