One maggot a day

[KitchenHell1]

I'm disgusted writing this...

For the past 3 days I've found a single maggot in my kitchen in the evenings. The last 2 nights they've been in the same corner and near the bin.

I don't get it. When I spotted the first one I fully bleached the bin and I take any rubbish straight out.

Also we had maggots in the bin one summer (awful...) and they were tiny wriggly things.

These are much fatter and don't move very much. And they're brown.

I've been googling and saw flies can lay a hundred eggs at once so I'm so worried there are another 97 hiding in the kitchen somewhere. I'm getting too worried to even go in there...

I took off the bottom of the cabinets to make sure nothing was hiding there, and couldn't see anything untoward.

What is this about? :(

Are you sure it’s a maggot and not a silver fish? I find odd ones of them around, they hide in the walls .. beggars!

It's not moth lavae?

Yes definitely not silverfish.

It looks like this: https://images.app.goo.gl/jd5P5i4zuW2k9hG68

The first one was white and moving, the other two were brown, so not sure if they weren't "hatched" or something?

They didn't move, so much so I thought it may be a bit of stick or something, but then I crushed it while trying to take it into the garden and it was all juicy inside. Like when they eat maggots on "I'm a celebrity ". Barf.

OP I'm glad you've written this because I've been finding the odd maggot/larvae in my kitchen too lately. So gross! I assume it's because we have all the windows open and the insects are coming in and making themselves at home. My plan is to let off some insecticide smoke bombs this weekend...

@Holly60 hmm close but not quite from what I can see on Google images.

@BlameItOnTheGoose so gross isn't it! The first one was near the double doors where DH leaves his shoes when he comes in from the garden and as he's always faffing around the compost I thought he'd just brought one in on his shoes.

But three... it's too many for comfort!

We had maggots once. It was pet food.

I meannin the cat food!

We just had maggots in our outside green/brown bin and it was disgusting!! Except we had hundreds!! Think it's the weather. Maggots range from white to brown in colour. Absolutely rotten!!

Bleach everything- in the cupboards (take every single thing out and scrub). Hoover, mop, scrub the floors and windows. Make sure those shoes from outside either stay outside or are washed off. Maybe get him to buy some clogs or crocs that can be rinsed. Keep flies out with citronella candles. No old potatoes or food left in cupboards, make sure the fridge is sealing properly etc. The brown ones are larvae I believe. Make sure you crush them so they're definitely dead, then dispose outside. Are your wheelie bins near your home?

No pet food here but as @Ladyoftheknight said, I think im going to have to go through every single food item in every cupboard to be on the safe side :(

I've only done the hoovering/mopping/floor scrubbing so far and might actually re-bleach the bin now.

The outside bins are on the other side of the house so I don't think it's from there.

But yes when we had maggots in those it was 100s of them like @scoobycute . I was pregnant at the time and DH was so worried about my reaction he tried to get rid of them all before I got home from work, bless him!

I had something like this a few years ago. I found fly pupae under the kitchen doormat. A fly's life cycle is like a butterfly's, but without the PR. An adult fly would have been attracted to some food; a dead mouse, a sausage that's rolled under a cupboard, etc. It lays eggs on the food. They hatch into maggots (equivalent to caterpillars) that feed, moult and grow until they're ready to pupae. They then leave the food, sometimes crawling for some distance, find somewhere sheltered and pupate. The pupae are often quite dark. When ready they hatch as adult flies. You'll keep getting them until what ever they are feeding on is eaten, dries out or is removed.

I never did find the source of my flies. I think something died in the wall cavity.

There are some flies that'll breed in rotten vegetable matter. Beetles, like mealworm beetles, can feed on anything and have a similar life cycle to flies though not as rapid, months compared to days/weeks. Their larvae can sometimes look a bit maggoty.

OP I'm sorry you're getting this, it's very unpleasant to find them in your house.