My kitchen has developed spontaneous maggots. I was away over the weekend and came home to discover a rather unpleasant smell in my kitchen. Conclusion: something has gone off in the kitchen - so I got rid of anything and everything I could think of that might be causing the smell, the potatoes in the cupboard, the waste bucket, the jars and things sitting on the bench awaiting being washed out prior to being taken to the recycling, the vegies in the fridge, everything. I was tired as buggery so I didn't go into the kitchen again the rest of the evening.
The next morning when I got up for work I found a whole bunch of dead flies all over the place. Now, I don't [let] flies in my flat if I can at all avoid it, I have a somewhat advanced germ-phobia and distinct disinclination to use poisonous chemical sprays, so the only alternative is to try and ensure that no flies get inside. Unfortunately one or two got in when I was carrying my stuff out prior to going away for the weekend, but surely not as many as I found dead all over my flat. Oh yes, and the one big green bastard sitting on the spout of my kettle who I cuaght and tossed outside (I have a jar for this express purpose).
Then I saw the maggots. There were a whole bunch of maggots crawling around on my kitchen becnhtop. Most of them over in the corner where the smell seemed to be coming from, but also scattered across the bench top and sink on that side of the room. Conclusion: the flies had gotten in somehow - possibly through the kitchen window (I left it open slightly to air the place out, and the frame around the fly-screen is a little bent, so there's a bit of gap) and probably attracted by the smell of whatever it was that had gone off.
I cracked out the vaccuum cleaner and sucked all the little bastards up. Checked under and around everything on the bench to make sure I'd got 'em all, banged the knife-block on the bench to dislodge any that might have been inside it, made sure there were absolutely no maggots left. Then I went to get ready for work. Each time I came back to the kitchen there was another maggot, just sitting there in the middle of the bench-top where no maggots had been only minutes before.
I got 'em all and went to work. Checked again when I got home. No maggots. Conclusion: I'd finally gotten 'em all.
So I disinfected the counter-top, washed up everything that had been sitting on the side, chucked out the toaster just in case (it didn't work properly anyway). Looked inside all the cupboards to make sure there was no evidence of maggots in 'em. Everything was nice and clean and I returned the knife-block and milkshake-maker to their usual places in the corner and went to bed.
Got up this morning, went to get ready for work. Saw a mark on the counter I'd cleaned last night. Lifted up the milk-shake maker: maggots. Lifted up the knifeblock: more maggots. Checked everywhere else they'd been yesterday: clean. Conclusion: the maggots must be coming from somewhere inside either the knife-block or the milkshake-maker.
I spent about two hours this morning, pouring boiling water through my knife-block, unscrewing but failing to remove the back of my milkshake-maker and blitzing maggots that kept turning up in random places on the counter-top, same places they'd been yesterday, same trick of randomly appearing somewhere that had been clear only minutes before. Conclusion: maybe maggots can move really, really fast?
I left the knife-block and milkshake-maker in a bag (in a box) on the floor and re-checked that there were no more maggots visible anywhere and went to work and hour late.
I went home at lunch-time and found maggots in the corner where I'd first found 'em this morning - which was completely clear of anything that may have been previously harbouring maggots. There was nothing there at all, but there were maggots from somewhere! They got vaccuumed.
Conclusion: there is something dead in the wall or ceiling that has maggots breeding in it and they're dropping through a gap into my kitchen.
So I went to the Real Estate agents who manage the flats I live in and told them about it and asked for someone to come do something about it ASAP. The chick from the Real Estate came 'round, I told her the whole story, with great agitation, her conclusion? The maggots are there because of the potatoes that had been in the cupboard and I should just get some fly spray and hope that kills 'em all. Apparently she believes in spontaneous generation, or else wasn't listening when I kept insisting that I'd gotten rid of all the maggots and then more appeared from nowhere! Although she did say that if I buy some spray and they still keep coming back I should let them know.
I have nothing in my kitchen that smells bad! I have nothing in my kitchen that those maggots could have come from! Maggots do not just spontaneously happen on an empty bench-top!
So now I have to get some poison and spray it all over my kitchen, you know, where I keep and prepare food, not to mention kill the spiders that I allow to live in the corners of the ceiling 'coz they're harmless and eat any insects that manage to get inside, and just hope the problem goes away.
Wish me luck with that.
I hope there's no maggots inside my cupboards.
