Well, it happened nearly six hours ago. I went to put my garbage out at the curb and found one of the cans totally covered with 1/4 - 1/2 inch maggots. I am a grown man and little bothers me in the natural world, but I just could not move that can with a moving cloth of slimy, disgusting larvae all over it. My first thought was to put on a thick pair of work gloves... I still couldn't stand it as I lifted the can and numerous maggots began to fall off onto my shoes and the cuffs of my pants. I retreated inside to work out a plan. I decided to fill a scrub bucket full of hot water and soap and pour the contents all over the can. I then returned to my home to wait for them to die/disperse. When I returned to the can I discovered that the two hundred or so that I had washed off with my soapy water were now charging right for my front door. They had squirmed their way across the sidewalk and right up my steps!!! Not only did this not work it drew another hundred or so out of the can to take the originals' place... That's when I realized that I was dealing with something much larger than I had originally anticipated. I then turned to the internet and discovered this excellent site and did some reading. Since it was around 2am at the time I decided to go with the easiest possible solution. I boiled about 20 gallons of water and poured in a gallon of bleach and dumped that all over them then went back inside to let them perish... To my horror and frustration when I returned in another 1/2 hour they were STILL squirming with little difference in their movement... maybe more than before... I returned to this site and did another hour's worth of reading and then jumped in my car and made for walmart like there was no tomorrow... I ended up with a bottle of lice shampoo... 2 cans of carburetor cleaner, and a can of RAID wasp killer... When I returned home it seemed that even more had surfaced from the can... Their front was advancing right up my door! I wasted no time and sprayed them all down with the lice shampoo... after 10 minutes I returned to several dead and most of them moving around sluggishly in the gel... I wasn't taking any chances however and popped open the RAID and gave them all a good dowsing of that which took out at least 1/2 of them... I went through a can of the carb cleaner spot spraying (which seemed to kill them on contact) until there was no more movement... I repeated this on the inside of the can and lid after finally being able to drag it to the curb. To my surprise it appears that most of them had indeed come out upon my initial attacks! The sun has risen and it is now 6am... It's been a long night, and I may have lost the first few battles, but I surely won the war. I've spent the last hour cleaning up the mess of chemicals and corpses in my wake and managed to have it all done before the garbage men come to collect the trash. From this experience I would like to pass on the following information to all those troubled souls that find themselves in a similar situation:
1. DO NOT just dump water or bleach on them...even if it's strictly hot water from the tap... This will NOT kill them... It will only make them more aggressive!
2. Boiling water is decent to stagger them, and if that's all you have may be effective after many, many gallons...
3. The lice shampoo stopped them in their tracks and stunned them beyond recovery, but didn't kill them on contact... and was the most expensive item in my arsenal. ($8)
4. RAID wasp killer has GREAT range so you don't have to get too close and worry about any flying off and on to your person, and seemed to do a decent job of killing them. ($4)
5. The carburetor cleaner lacked the range of the RAID, however it was instantaneously deadly to the maggots... It was also the cheapest! ($1.50)
Good luck... and remember... prevention is much easier and less expensive than dealing with the problem when it comes home to roost!
