As we launch in to 2011, we're starting a new series called the Top 5 Most Disturbing Things in Pest Control. Since people always come up with a list a the end of each year consisting of their Top 10 Events of 2010, or their Top 5 Doggie Hairdos (not sure of spelling there), we wanted to have a list of our own. Thus begins our list where we'll count down the top 5 grossest, or weirdest things we encounter in the pest control business.
Our first installment and in at Number 5...Maggots!
Believe it or not, flies are actually much nastier than cockroaches. Houseflies feed and lay their eggs in decaying organic matter and they have a preference for feces. That means the fly a crawling around on your arm or your table may have just arrived there from a stopover on a "cow patty," or Rover's dinner from last night. Houseflies have been shown to transmit a large number of parasitic, bacterial, and viral diseases
All of that is pretty gross, but what really makes your skin crawl are maggots. A housefly can lay up to 500 eggs. Within 20 hours to a few days the eggs will hatch into maggots. There are three main places that you might run into maggots in your house.
Garbage Can
We see this a lot as people will pull a bag out of the trash can and set it on the floor to tie it off. When they pick up the bag off the floor they see maggots on the floor left behind from the bag. Often the maggots are between the can and the bag where spilled food and liquid waste can be trapped and create a nice place for maggots to live.
Dead Animals
Rats, squirrels, raccoons, opossums, even some larger wildlife can unfortunately, or fortunately at times, meet their demise close to or inside your home. Just like on CSI, flies quickly find these dead critters and lay their eggs. In a couple of weeks, the full maggots will leave the corpse en masse to find a place to pupate. That emigration may land them in your living room floor! That is, of course, if they're not already in your attic because of a dead rat or squirrel up there. Revolting!
Rotten Food
If you’ve got kids, you know that they often find creative places to discard their food. Or, a sloppy spouse or roommate might spill a little spaghetti behind the stove. All this can lead to the same situation as with a dead animal if the flies find the food before you.
You can probably guess that the most important factor in controlling flies is sanitation. Even with the best sanitation, however, flies that breed in places away from your house and beyond your control can find their way to becoming a nuisance for you. This is especially a problem in Texas during the summer. Flies can spoil all the fun of a barbecue on the 4th of July. Venus Pest Company, using a sprayable bait, can virtually eliminate houseflies around your house for 2 to 4 weeks.
No…the bag of water hanging on the porch does not work. If you think it does, my uncle in Nigeria wants to transfer $5 million into your bank account. All we need is your account number!