Larvae in my Bathroom
September 16th 2008 21:00
Photo by Alvesgaspar. Used in accordance with the terms of Wikimedia Commons’ GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts.
Like many people, I’m sloppy when it comes to housework. I keep putting it off simply because it can be put off. It’s not like the world will end tomorrow if I don’t tidy up. Mind you, I’m a lot better now that I live in a trendy flat in Sydney’s trendy Eastern suburbs so I now spend at least one day a week keeping my place tidy.
It wasn’t always like that. Years ago I lived in this hovel in Elizabeth Bay. An affluent suburb but too bad I lived on the poor end…the side closest to that slum otherwise known as Kings Cross. I chose the flat in desperation; I wanted to live somewhere close to the nightclubs and the CBD. This flat – as dodgy as it was with its rising damp and exploding power sockets– came with cheap rent. And the address looked good on paper. Imagine telling people I live in Elizabeth Bay. Perfect!
So I was cleaning the bathroom one night when I noticed a sponge that had been lying on the floor for weeks. My sister had moved out a few weeks ago and had left the sponge there. I picked it up and turned it over, noticing all these weird dark loopy things on the underside. I was wondering what they were when I noticed they slowly came awake and started wriggling around on the sponge. I screamed in horror and threw the sponge out of the window, hoping my friend Fred, who was also the caretaker, wouldn’t notice and lecture me for being a “scumbag” (Fred’s word for people he despises).
A year later I was moving out. My neighbour was helping me get the place ready for inspection. It was then I noticed a soap dish (also courtesy of my sister) that had been sitting in the bathroom for yonks. I lifted it up and turned it over only to see the same dark loopy things that were, again, slowly coming alive. I started shrieking and my neighbour lectured me about how I was breeding “animals” through my filthy bathroom.
“They’re not animals,” I corrected. Animals were warm, fluffy, furry things. “They’re larvae.”
“Maggots, larvae, animals, whatever. I call everything that moves animals,” she said.
I wondered what those dark loopy things were. I Googled them. I discovered they were dirt fly larvae: the babies of these tiny grey flies I saw lurking around my bathroom pipes from time to time. Apparently they love to live in dirty water, underneath hard surfaces for shelter. To think I was inadvertently breeding them in my very own bathroom…
Now that I know what causes them, I make sure there are no pools of stale water in my bathroom. I also make sure any objects left lying around my bathroom that come in contact with water are regularly moved around. I have had no problems with these “animals” ever since (touch wood).
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