Stinky bin

[spamlet]

Just what I was thinking. At this time of the year the nesting birds like robins will makes short work of any maggots they find in the open. And it is astonishing how they find them: I had some grass seed in a cardboard pack that had been sealed for a number of years. When I opened it some moths flew out, and when I tipped the contents on to the lawn, robins appeared and kept back and forth picking out all the maggots, which I could scarcely distinguish from the seeds. Very sharp eyes they have.

Also use this method with sardine tins - having made sure to buy in brine not oil: let the cats lick the tin out to save on smelly sink or bin.

S

[spamlet]

A gallon of bleach and a gallon of amonia will kill anything with chlorine gas, just bleach will do the trick

I have a covered bin for kitchen waste, as a sort of half way house to the compost bin (in a warmer spot and less far to walk). In the warmer months this gets packed with fruit flies. When they get to be a nuisance, as a home wine maker I have metabisulphite and citric acid to hand: a small jar with dissolved citric acid is placed in the middle of the top of the bin, and the half a teaspoon of metabisulphite added quickly, before putting the lid down firmly (*Essential to hold one's breath.*). The sulphur dioxide produced kills all the hatched out grubs, and can be repeated a few days later to get most of the rest. Won't get rid of the smell though: though actually this bin - in a largely veggie household - does not often smell that bad: from the outside at least!

S

[Frederick Williams]

Is there a danger that the pussy cats will cut their tongue?

[ARWadsworth]

That would be Fabreze. You miserable git:-)

Adam

[John Whitworth]

I beat you to it in my post @9.04am. But I didn't make a song & dance about it. :-P

[Bruce]

Oh go on then, I'll put you in my kill file.

You have surely earned it. ;-)

[Andrew Gabriel]

Well, the stink has died down now, although still strong if you open the bin. I did balance an aluminium foil tray of bleach on top of the rubbish in the bin, but it didn't bother the maggots, and several seemed to swim in it without coming to harm.

However, what happened last night was quite remarkable. I went outside at midnight to find everything within a 2-3 metre radius of the wheelie bin covered in maggots. They were squeezing their way out from under the lid, working their way down the outside (and simply falling off in many cases) and then radiating outwards from the bin. Things they encountered en route such as the other wheelie bin, a bag of hedge cuttings, and an old telly waiting to go up to the tip were all covered too. I didn't open the bin to look inside - there wasn't anywhere I could grab hold of the lid! This vaguely reminded me of an old Dr.Who series from my childhood.

Anyway, this morning, not a maggot in sight, except for some which drowned in the puddles last night. I looked in the wheelie bin, and none to be seen in there either. I guess they finished off the chicken and have gone off to become flies...

[tony sayer]

Silly man!, what you should have done is wheeled it out in the street with a big sign saying

!!! ANGLERS STOCK UP HERE FOR FREE !!!...

They'd soon had the maggots away doing something more useful with them;!...

[Andrew Gabriel]

A couple of blackbird families seems to have found them, judging by the fact they've been digging up the ground all around the wheelie bins for the last few hours.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Frederick Williams saying something like:

Mine never have, nor the dog. The edge of the pull-off remaining in the tin isn't particularly sharp, ime.

[Phil L]

They can only climb vertically when the sides are wet, it either rained in or there was sufficient condensation on the inside of the bin to allow them to climb out.

when anglers buy maggots, they have a mixture of sawdust and ground maize on them to prevent them climbing. If it rains whilst fishing and they get wet in the box, every last one of them will disappear within 30 minutes. Curious things maggots, they sink under normal conditions, but if you want them to float, you take a handfull and put them in a sealed box for 10 minutes with a splash of water, once they get wet, they take inside them a bubble of oxygen and when they go into the water, they float....handy for when the fish are feeding on the surface rather than the bottom.