General Question

ShaChris23's avatar

Suggest effective ways to kill fly maggots or pupae?

Asked by ShaChris23 (318points) August 31st, 2012

This is one of the most disgusting things I have ever dealt with in my entire life.. Just thinking about it makes me want to vomit. Please do not proceed if you have a weak stomach.

On Day 1 I came home and found fly maggots crawling on the bare kitchen floor; apparently they’d just hatched and migrated from the kitchen bin. I frantically googled up how-to’s and tried suggested strategies. Exposing a maggot to salt didn’t work; pouring boiling water over a maggot was messy and took it as long as one minute to die (cruel). Finally I settled on picking them up one by one, a slow process, and dropping them into a bowl of boiling water. I probably killed 30 of them in this manner. If the water cooled down even one bit, the maggot would not die; it was really heat resistant! Not only that, I spotted one maggot disappeared into the impossible gap/crease where the wall and floor met; that was how I realized, “No wonder, they kept coming out of nowhere! Probably squash-resistant as well!”

Watching the maggots cook into white rice grains was traumatizing enough. I thought my nightmare was over when, on Day 4, I spotted some “brown rice grains” on the living room’s carpet and a rug. Turned out these were maggots-turned-pupae. They dug into the carpet and hid there, and all this time I’d been stepping on the carpet. I googled and found that the maggots could migrate as far as 50 meters!

I had to vacuum the carpet; I then emptied the content into a plastic bag and tied it very secure. As for the rug, I hung it outside, letting it expose to harsh August sunlight.

Today is Day 5. I still don’t know what to expect and am paranoia of stepping on the carpet. The rug is still hung outside, LOL.

So as you can tell, I have very little experience dealing with this situation!!! My questions to you are:

1) How would you get rid of house fly maggots—

- on bare floor? (Obviously you have to pick them up when they’re on the floor; how can you vacuum them on bare floor?)
– hidden inside the carpet, invisible? (Can you vacuum the maggots from the carpet?—or is that going to be messy, with their gummy bodies clogging your vacuum cleaner filter (yuck)?)
– hidden inside the rug? (If you hang the rug out in the sun, would that be enough to kill the maggots?)

Please suggest effective solutions… I’m not going to rent a steam vacuum cleaner (as popularly suggested online), and pouring boiling water everywhere on the carpet is out.

2) Same question, but with fly pupae (when they turned brown and immobile).

+ Can you squash them?
+ Do they always remain hidden inside the carpet?
+ Does the process of vacuuming the pupae kill them? When I vacuumed them, they appeared intact inside the dust container.

THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH FOR ANY SUGGESTIONS! Wishing you all a safe and even cleaner kitchen!!!

Observing members: 0 Composing members: 0

8 Answers

majorrich's avatar

Vacuuming them up was probably sufficient. Meticulously clean the area around the floor and cabinets where the maggots were. Empty the the vacuum outside in the dustbin. The few that may escape the vacuum will probably be bludgeoned to death by the beater bar or brushes on the vacuum. Maybe a couple of flies may make it out alive, but that’s about it. We occasionally steam clean the kitchen floor under the cabinets and stove and move the fridge and clean the floor under there. But that may be considered a bit excessive.

Nullo's avatar

I knew a guy once who would spray them with oven cleaner.

syz's avatar

You need to find the source of the maggots. If they are truly fly maggots, you’ve got a dead body or meat around somewhere. Somewhere close.

I wouldn’t worry about how to kill them – just sweep them up, bag them, and throw them out. And vacuuming is probably going to be your best bet for the rug.

_Whitetigress's avatar

This happened to me the other week. Don’t worry this is normal. Especially since blow flies are extremely active during the summer with mating and what not. They must have been feeding out of the trash can. That’s where mine were. They turned into the “brown rice” pellets and I stepped all over them, and swept and mopped accordingly. After you vacuum go ahead and throw some Arm and Hammer deodorant on it as well then vacuum again. Perhaps you should look into buying fly traps if you don’t have the time to make some on your own.

This Brand of Fly Traps Seems To Work Quite Well

You can type the brand into YouTube and see it in action. The only way to keep them out is to cut the source of supply. Make sure you clean the house every day and the trash is taken out every day as well.

ccrow's avatar

Ugh… yeah, you need to eliminate the source first of all. If they’re crawling around on the floor(for example around my trash bags in the garage) I just spray them with household cleaner and wipe them up with paper towels. As for the rug, I think I would vacuum it more thoroughly than ever before, and shampoo it many times. You can put a few mothballs in the vacuum bag to kill the pupae. You spoke of hanging the rug out; if you can remove it, maybe get it professionally cleaned? Not cheap, though.

ShaChris23's avatar

Thank you all. My kitchen is actually very clean; I always clean up immediately after eating; that’s why I said I never had to deal with this!! It was food deep inside the trash bin and maybe some fly flew in there. More suggestions anyone?

boxer3's avatar

Clean the garbage bin itself. This happened to me in an outdoor bin, I mixed bleach peroxide and boiling water…..a concoction I found online-poured it on them and then thoroughly bleached the he’ll out of the bin. No more maggots!

_Whitetigress's avatar

@ShaChris23 We don’t doubt you try your best to be clean. But even maggots find a way to trash. I’m pretty sure the maggots only grow if they can eat. Check your drain too!

Answer this question

Login

or

Join

to answer.

This question is in the General Section. Responses must be helpful and on-topic.

Your answer will be saved while you login or join.

Have a question? Ask Fluther!

What do you know more about?
or
Knowledge Networking @ Fluther