Should I be freaked out? I am going to Egypt next week, setting of the original Ten Plagues and am witnessing my own plagues at work in London.
It all started a week ago,a rotten stench enveloped my office, akin to someone microwaving brussels sprouts – not the most pleasant sensation for your nostrils if you can imagine for a moment.
If anything would activate your gag reflex, this was it as it grew progressively worse, Rentokil examined the area but nothing could be found, it was above our heads in the rafters above our polystyrene fitted ceiling panels.
A few days later you could hear tiny little thuds. Nothing alarming, we usually hear giant thuds from crows and gulls doing the can-can across our rooftops. But then a scream escaped from a colleague – a maggot had dropped on their desk.
Then it went ballistic, every half a minute maggots begun raining down from gaps in the ceiling tiles, literally raining maggots, very biblical you’ll agree.
They don’t like to be picked up either, squirming away from my grip, the solution I found was a post it note and dabbed each one up until I had the sticky back of the post it crawling in plump little bodies. I got about 50 in all and I nested them outside.
Bank holiday weekend then be felled us, the Rentokil guy said the maggots would form a chrysalis then emerge as beautiful blue-bottles. I envisaged a scene out of The Flies if Hitchcock had made a film about flies instead of birds, myself cast as Tippi Hedren, in a pale green two piece swatting away as they make a nuisance of themselves around my head.
No such luck, Tuesday morning came and I entered the office to a floor strewn with blue bottle corpses and a few victorious ones zipping about the room. Luckily we had a hot weekend and the heat must have fried them as when I tried collecting their bodies they would disintegrate under the tissue paper. I went about selecting the music for their funeral and then proceeded to use the Metro newspaper to deal with the other bluebottles who were having a jolly time of it (which was quite disrespectful of them, lauding it over their deceased counterparts).
If that whole episode wasn’t enough we then found a rat in the works kitchen – I’m gonna need a weekend newspaper to tackle this.
My maggoty friends
londonsurvival 
Ruby
/ May 8, 2013I hate maggots. Like, really really. They make me want hurl. And just to put this in context, I am literally typing this comment on my phone while sitting in an OR with a patient whose entire pelvis is cut o
Ruby
/ May 8, 2013Cut open and the doctor is sawing pieces of bone off. This does not bother me. Maggots??? I would’ve left that office and never returned.
Also, I hate typing on my phone. I wasn’t finished there!!!
joehoover
/ May 8, 2013Haha! I wondered what happened
joehoover
/ May 8, 2013Can the maggots help him? When I googled how to get rid of them they seemed very useful.
They were gross, the Rentokil guys said they no nervous system not blodd supply so none of his treatments work. If they never bothered turning into flies they would take over the world.
Ruby
/ May 8, 2013That sounds like the making of a horror film.
And yes, maggots are used with burn victims because they’re a very clean way to remove dead flesh. For whatever reson, those maggots do not like the taste of freshness. But still… Shudder!!
joehoover
/ May 9, 2013They don’t still use them?!?!
She's a Maineiac
/ May 8, 2013Raining maggots? What’s next? I saw maggots once in the trash years ago and I nearly fainted. I was freaked out for days.
joehoover
/ May 9, 2013They are gross, I was itching all day. Good for fishing though
pouringmyartout
/ May 8, 2013You say raining maggots like that’s a bad thing…
joehoover
/ May 9, 2013Trust you to see the bright side 😀
pouringmyartout
/ May 9, 2013I am just a bundle of cheer.
Mooselicker
/ May 8, 2013You saw maggots in person? It’s like you’re writing my Bucket List Blog.
joehoover
/ May 9, 2013I was nursing them all day in the bag I collected them in, we became quite attached
Laura
/ May 8, 2013I’ve had some horrifying encounters with insects before, but nothing as bad as this. I’m pretty sure that if I’d been in your office when the rain started, I’d be checking my clothes and hair for maggots for days afterwards.
Was the rat you found alive or dead? Was it what the maggots were eating, or are the remains of their dinner still in your ceiling somewhere? I’m guessing that’s what the stench was.
joehoover
/ May 9, 2013I could hardly keep my lunch down, as I was the one chasing them around, everyone else was too freaked.
Rat was alive, we get mice at work being in London, by the canal and by railway tracks, and I see rats out and about but never in our kitchen at work. Was a mice they were munching on, I guess the rat just wanted some of the spoils too.
Fun times…after 15 years in this chair there aren’t many things that happen out of the ordinary, there was a fire nearby once, and another time the police came to arrest a colleague but that was it in 15 years. I’m thankful for the maggots adding to my life experience.
Madame Weebles
/ May 8, 2013Holy fuck, that’s vile. I think I’d quit right then and there. You’ll probably be safer in Egypt than in that kitchen.
joehoover
/ May 9, 2013I’ve been stationed here 15 years, I won;t be ousted by a rat. This is war!
This incident was a first though, ah well, makes work more challenging
Doggy's Style
/ May 8, 2013That would be added to the “how to lose weight” list, a kitchen full of maggots and rats (let’s say there are plenty of them).
Yikes!
I read maggots and think of this (minute 3:50)
joehoover
/ May 9, 2013Haha! yeah, I did struggle to eat my sandwich that day.
appletonavenue
/ May 10, 2013Is that song for real? It sounds like it was written by Weird Al!
benzeknees
/ May 9, 2013Maybe there were rotting brussel sprouts up above your ceiling tiles or a dead body. Either one would set off a plague of maggots.
joehoover
/ May 9, 2013Yikes! A friend said a dead body too, I’m glad it was just a mouse body.
jotsfromasmallapt
/ May 9, 2013how can i like this…question mark
joehoover
/ May 10, 2013It’s a dilemma!
jotsfromasmallapt
/ May 10, 2013indeed…exclamation point
pegoleg
/ May 10, 2013omg. I’m not usually given to using this trite, overworked abbreviation, but not wanting to take the Lord’s name in vain, all I can do is scream, in caps. OMG!!!!!! I would have run screaming from the building.
joehoover
/ May 13, 2013I would have loved to but people were more in fear than I so someone had to collect them all up. I feel I conquered a fear though, it wasn’t all bad.
appletonavenue
/ May 10, 2013Eeeeeeeew!! It sounds as if the bugs didn’t bother you at all. Just looking at the photo makes me gag and shiver, whereas you brushed them away like so much dust.
joehoover
/ May 13, 2013Suprisingly so, I do have a fear of bugs but you have to deal with them or they take over. A spider plague would have been something else entirely
appletonavenue
/ May 14, 2013Odd. Spiders don’t bother me so much.
Main Street Musings Blog
/ May 15, 2013And to think I was worried about the imminent cicada invasion here in NJ. I’ve got nothing on you!
joehoover
/ May 22, 2013Ugh! They look gross! Glad we don’t get them
Linda Vernon
/ May 17, 2013Well of course this is the nite I decide it would be a good idea to make a smoothie and go read Joe’s blog! (on the upside I need to drop a couple of pounds)! What’s that? You’re going to Egypt next week? That is so cool! Well now you’ve got one of the ten plagues out of the way (one of them was gnats so really only 8 left to go!) How bizarre tho.
joehoover
/ May 22, 2013I thought of you on holiday, some Germans had left their version of Readers Digest in the hotel, the images were right up your street and right for parody. I wish I had taken them home.
Linda Vernon
/ May 23, 2013Oh Joe! A German version of Readers Digest left in a hotel room? Be still my beating heart! 😀
joehoover
/ May 24, 2013🙂