Wednesday, August 18, 2010

The Legacy of Mr. Horrible, Part 2

Previously. On I'm Afraid of Bees...
A rat has terrorized my apartment, but is finally dead somewhere in the walls.

Mr. Horrible had died some time in the winter. It was summer now and the apartment was up to its usual shenanigans.

The floor in the bathroom was leaking. That's right, the floor. Water was coming up through the tile and ruining several bathmats.




We would later learn that a pipe under our floor was cracked and leaking.

What does this have to do with Mr. Horrible, you ask?
To answer that we first need a quick science lesson. Yay, science!

Did you know that certain flies make their babies in animal carcasses?
That's why there are always maggots on corpses in horror movies.

I'm sure you are thinking, "Maggots? Oh no, there's a rat corpse in her walls!"
You are right to be concerned.




Flies also need a running water source to turn grow up big and strong.





Remember the hole in the bathroom wall? The one that Mr. Horrible made?
That was the point of entry for the flies.





I'd never been afraid of flies before. But I'd also never seen flies like this.
They were HUGE and aggressive. They would charge at your head and smack into your face. It felt like being pelted with rocks. There were usually 3 or 4 of them around at a time, often appearing while I was using the bathroom.

As you can imagine, the flies were well on their way to becoming my number one fear.
Then I made the mistake of looking them up on wikipedia.

Looking at anything online is a bad idea. Most people find knowledge empowering. I am not most people. The more I know about something the more it sends me into a spiral of panic. Plus there are pictures.

But I end up online anyway, researching every little thing that comes into my life.
"My throat hurts and oh, it looks weird. The Internet will know what to do!"





"Oh look, pictures! One of these will surely match my throat problem."






"Oh no."






"Oh dear god no!"






"NOOOOOO!"






The internet lived up to its reputation, revealing that these giant flies weren't just any giant flies. They were flesh-eating flies.
Flesh. Eating. Flies.





This explained why the roommate and I had been waking up with mysterious bug bites. The flies had been EATING OUR FLESH.






Further research revealed that flies cannot fly in cold environments.
We turned the apartment into an ice box. I also purchased a fancy bug spray.
It smelled like Febreze and murder.

The apartment being cold definitely cut down on the fly activity. I had my magic fly spray. I was lulled into a false sense of security. I made the mistake of turning the air conditioner off.

I was sitting on my bed, watching important tv shows, when I noticed some casual lumps on my rug.







As the room became warmer the lumps began to slowly move, like zombies dragging themselves out of their shallow graves.
Wait, those were no ordinary lumps! Magnify!





I screamed and sprayed and sprayed and screamed. I made myself light-headed and had to go into the living room.

There was no easy solution for the flies.
The Internet revealed that fly infestations happen outdoors, on farms. They can be lured away from your horses with a giant blue balloon-like apparatus.







This was not a feasible solution for our refrigerator-box sized apartment.
I stuck to the screaming and spraying solution.

The flies disappeared when the weather turned cooler. My fear of them did not.

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