Moving here from Vancouver, I found I’m not accustomed to the wondrous plenty of black flies that co-exist in this area. In Vancouver you might see one here or there, but nothing really noticeable. Here I have the pleasure of sitting out my back deck and having 8-10 flies at the same time vying for the best place to land and sit on me. Even when I swat them away, they just circle and come back and quite often like to land on my head. They like to eat what’s in my sweat.
A few have gotten into the house here and there - my screen door needs a bit of fixing - but I didn’t think too much of it. Aside from the annoyance of them buzzing around and landing on me, my favorite time of all is first thing in the morning when I wake up, and still under the covers they somehow sense it, and start flying around my face. So at this it is time to invest in a fly swatter or a rolled up newspaper also can do the trick.
One morning I got up a bit earlier than usual at around 6 a.m., and sat down to do some writing in the living room. It’s an open concept type of cabin that I live in where the kitchen and living room are one big room, with bedrooms off to the sides. There is tile flooring in the kitchen and some sort of wood laminate in the living area. To my surprise I saw something crawling on the floor I’ve never seen before. I went to take a closer look at it, and it was one of the most disgusting things I’ve ever seen. A small white worm “thing” wiggling around on the floor. I got up to get a tissue and grabbed it and threw it in the toilet and went back to my writing.
I eventually got up to get a juice from the kitchen. I stopped dead, there were about 30-40 of these white larva crawling around on my kitchen floor. I hadn’t seen them before because they hide during the daytime, and guess where they were hiding - under my stove. I flicked the light on and they made a break for, heading for cracks, anywhere they could get too. It was absolutely horrifying. I phoned three exterminators and finally one said to get a can of Raid and kill them. The next morning, up early again, I headed to the kitchen, with Raid in hand and spray I did. But not only did it not seem to affect them, they just crawled away. I figured out if I absolutely soak them in a pool of Raid, they can’t get away and they died in about 2 hours. I still have no idea where they came from originally. I don’t leave food on the floor and am fairly clean. The exterminator told me black flies only go for dead flesh and blood and the garbage can is too deep for them to crawl out of. I looked everywhere for the source like a dead mouse behind the stove...I found nothing...Ewwwwww!
So when I called my mom, I found out some interesting things about my new little neighbours. Black fly larva is used to treat deep wounds that are unable to close and wounds with rotting tissue because they eat only the bad tissue and are more accurate than a scalpel, and also have disinfectant properties. They were legalized for hospital by the FDA in the U.S. in 2004 because they had been used since time began by human civilizations. The use of larva was also made known in war situations where wounds they had fed on had healed more rapidly, and better in the end, they save lives and limbs. They are also used to treat animal wounds as well.
While I’m quite happy to still be rid of them in my place as they are one of the grossest things I’ve seen, I guess it is nice to know if I ever need to use one, I can just pluck one of the floor. But seriously, I think I would prefer to just read about them than actually live with them as I continue to experience local life here in Saskatchewan.
