Help! What are these maggots?!

lushlifesaver

hi all you super helpful people! I've just been drying up my boyfriends lunch box which I washed yesterday and when I lifted the lid there were tons of tiny things underneath, I guess they are maggots of somekind. They weren't on the draining board yesterday, we don't have flies etc so what are they and where do they come from?
I have had to take a little elastic ring of the lid and scald the lid clean, then when I looked in a few little seams there were some in those so I've used my nail to remove those

But what I really need to know is what are they? where did they come from? and how the blinking heck do I get rid of them?

Penny-Pincher!!

Do you have a picture?

Hay_Maker

Were they black? If so, Google thrips (also called corn flies and thunder bugs), we've got the pesky blighters everywhere at the moment and as soon as I clear one lot up another seems to move in.

Popperwell

Should be reasonably easy to get rid of them by what you are doing but if the box isn't expensive you could replace it...just a couple of times if I have not wraped up food in the wheelie bin properly it can happen but some disinfectant soon cures matters...but they are disgusting little blighters...

lushlifesaver

I don't have a picture but they are very small (just a few millimeters each) and white.
I seem to have them all cleared up for now, going to disinfect the draining board and hope I never see them again!
It's a reasonably pricey box so I can't just toss it out and we put the food straight in them (I have one too) going to keep washing it out with really hot water every day and then check for them as I dry it.

I tend to have pasta or rice salad whilst he has baby spinach and sliced cooked chicken so I think the hot washes may be the best idea.

Anybody know where they may have come from? are they likely to have been in the food that was in there last??

jpscloud

Was there fruit in there? They could be fruit fly larvae, which wouldn't seem so bad as nasty flies, somehow

Nasty fly lavae (AKA maggots) are quite large, you'd not mistake them for anything else.

PixieDust

Oh - sounds like tiny fly eggs. Grim...but you have done everything necessary to kill them

Pooky

If they're in little clusters and not moving then its likely to be fly eggs, they can lay hundreds of them.

I try and pick up our cats food bowls as soon as they've eaten as within seconds, if the door/windows are open the flies are in and laying eggs in the moist food.

A good wash in hot water is all you need and watch out for any flies!

lushlifesaver

They were all moving which is what initially caused them to come to my attention I must admit.

It was baby spinach and cooked chicken in there and there was nothing in the spinach when I made his box up. Just hoping that there's nothing in the chicken as we still have the remaining few in the freezer! (they are a pack of frozen steamed chicken breasts from Iceland)