I realised the perils of suburban wild life in the heat of summer the other day when my nearest and dearest (Phil) made me a home cooked breakfast of eggs and bacon and baked beans. I came downstairs a few minutes later, popped it into the microwave for 30 sec and then sat down at the breakfast bar. Then, with knife and fork poised, there on the glistening yellow yoke and wriggling about was a very much alive maggot! I could not believe my eyes and let out a yelp. Well, actually I screamed like a banshee (which woke up my teenage daughter who doesn't usually rise until midday on the weekend) and dragged Phil out of the shower to come and see the offending vermin. The maggot had by now made its way over to the baked beans and was wriggling away in the sauce. It must have come from the baked beans said Phil and went into the bin to inspect the can. On opening the bin a huge swarm of ants piled out (but more on that later).
But the maggot couldn't have come from the tin can of beans there must have been another source. I began to eye my 15 year old son who was finding this all rather amusing and asked very po-faced whether he had by any chance put the maggot on the egg as a practical joke. It was almost April Fool's Day after all. But his denial was very convincing. It had to have dropped from somewhere, but where, perhaps the ceiling but that seemed impossible.
So now in total horror I was on a complete mission to ransack and disinfect the whole kitchen. I started with the pantry cupboard, from the top. I had noticed a couple of moths in there. Everything got taken out and the whole cupboard disinfected. I went through everything with a ruthless zeal. And then I found the gruesome evidence of moths laying their eggs and tiny hatched maggots in everything. They had gotten into the rice, the pasta, the herbs and even the English Mustard! Unbelievably they had managed to get into sealed packets, those tiny maggots have incredibly strong teeth. Yet amazingly enough there was no sign of entry. Just on opening a perfectly sealed packet I would find signs of a chrysalis and a strange thread-like texture on the food, a sure sign of break-in and entry. By the time I came round to cooking rice I was just about inspecting each grain of rice with a microscope. My whole sense of judgement became clouded by the possible look of a maggot. Even rice when it was cooking began to take on the look of boiling maggots. I was becoming obsessed with anything that could look like a maggot. In fact it was going to be difficult to ever eat rice again!
After I had purged the whole pantry cupboard, I was still obsessed that there might be a stray moth lurking there. I would open the door suddenly, to catch an offending moth in mid flight. When I saw one (or two my heart sank and I knew the true meaning of depression). I did catch a few, which was bad news, one moth can lay hundreds of eggs.
So everything came out again and the whole cupboard disinfected especially in the tiniest crooks and crannies. I was even more ruthless about throwing out anything that wasn't sealed so the pantry was beginning to look rather bare. The only things that really remained were things that had sugar in them. I've discovered moths and maggots don't really go for sugar, perhaps that's why sugar is considered a good preservative.
After a couple of days all was beginning to look quiet on the pantry front. But we still had a major problem with ants overflowing from the bin. On the advice from a man in a shop we laid a trap of a sickly green liquid which the ants like and take a little back with them to their colony. And then the whole colonies dies!!
But then one little soldier ant must have been out on reconnaissance and reported back to the whole army about the nice stash of glace cherries on the top of the pantry cupboard. For on opening the pantry door the next day I came upon a swarming mass of ants feasting on the cherries. We followed the trail of ants all the way down, through the tiniest of cracks in the cupboard, down to the floor, over and around the breakfast bar down into a little crack in the floor. Feeling utterly ruthless we set up a trap with the sickly green liquid in the pantry and let them tuck in. It was, admittedly, a little difficult to sit back and watch this happen, but I have to say ants are just marginally better than maggots and moths to have in your pantry cupboard, so I was able to cope. Slowly after a couple of days piles of carcasses began to form and the tailback to the nest disappeared. And the whole pantry got cleared out and disinfected yet again!
Finally we congratulated ourselves on getting rid of the deluge of pests. I was quite relieved that the weather was getting a bit cooler. Warmer weather sure hatches life. It makes you wonder what might happen with global warming. Animals and insects will proliferate and may take over the world. The cooler weather of Winter never seemed so appealing!
But the next day the cats brought in a mouse and it escaped under the sofa ….
