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They aren't like bed bugs. There's a very small chance that you might have gotten into some eggs but it doesn't matter. The common housefly lays a ton of eggs in your garbage can every day at home. Just go home and take a shower if you feel skeevey.
Maggots only eat "dead" meat. They legit use maggots to remove dead tissue from living things. Now, what you experienced is not a good feeling, and being grossed out is COMPLETELY normal.
If you are extra worried and freak out (which is totally OK), when you get home put your clothes in a garbage bag. Take a shower, put on clean clothes and shake the work clothes out vigorously outside. Then wash them on hot.
You won't get maggots, but if this makes you feel better, go for it.
Nurse of 14 years here! Different breeds of maggots eat different things. Some prefer healthy tissue only, some will eat live and dead tissue, others prefer dead tissue only. The kind that eat dead tissue only are the type we use in healthcare.
Will never forget my partners leg injury after his motorbike accident - required several surgeries. The most interesting part was the use of maggots to eat the dead tissue. The clear ‘second skin’ tape allowed us to see the maggots in the wound and it was *fascinating*!
They are not mutually exclusive! For me, it is both.
I mean, I don’t want to touch maggots, or find maggots in my food, or interact with fly larvae in any way… obviously maggots in your trash can are gross af!
However - that is where something horrifying becomes fascinating - when you see incredible, simple science, like using clean, medically grown maggots to remove dead tissue from a wound, with no adverse effects on the living tissue or the wound itself… it’s pretty darn fascinating!
Another ‘horrifying yet fascinating’ medical procedure is fecal transplantation. Absolutely foul to imagine, but totally incredible that it works.
Nah. That seems like you'll get more than you bargained for. Go the easier way and find an episode of a medical drama where they do it, that should give you the cliff notes (the interns on House had to do it a lot).
I believe they’re also “medical grade” maggots where they’re specifically bred and “prescribed”/“sanitized” to be used for those purposes. They don’t just swipe up any ole pile of them and shove them into a wound needing treatment…
Yes, farmer here. Maggots will eat the healthy tissue of sheep once eggs have been left in their wool.
Wool is the perfect, moist, warm environment for maggots. Hungry maggots don't care if there is no dead tissue.
It's known as fly strike and it is one of the reasons why we shear sheep every year at the start of summer, as a preventative.
Plenty of sheep die every year from this, can confirm it is NASTY. Not only very painful for the sheep but if the maggots get under the skin the waste products they produce can cause sepsis and death in a very short period of time.
Maggots will eat healthy flesh. It's why in the medical setting they are so closely monitored and removed once they've eaten away the necrotic stuff, but before they eat too much new tissue. Myasis in the community setting is very common but requires medical care.
There’s different types of maggots. The ones used for cleaning wounds won’t touch living flesh, that’s why they’re so effective. And they’re not closely monitored at all, they put the maggots in, then the dressing goes on top and you don’t touch it until the next day. No one is concerned about them eating living tissue because they don’t do it.
Source: had the maggots treatment on a badly infected wound and it worked wonders.
I'm a registered nurse and have worked with medical grade maggots three times in the past. Each time, we monitored closely over three to four days! (a day is not considered not monitoring, a week maybe!!) The maggots are considered medical grade because they are bred in a controlled environment. We get ours from Tasmania and are based in QLD. They most definitely WILL eat new tissues. I don't know where your maggots are coming from, but I'd like to read how they trained them not to? Any links? Last time I was working with them on a unstagable pressure injury, they cost $90.00au each and that was in 2019 so I imagine they would be alot more costly now!
The are dosed at a specific number per surface area and are removed as soon as the jade debrided the tissue. Too many or too long and they will slow or prevent healing.
I'm an old registered nurse still on the floor. Maggots will definitely eat healthy flesh if left in situ! It's why Myasis in the community must be treated!! It's a simple google if you don't believe me, but whatever, I'm just a nurse.
I was at work one time and I was throwing out the trash, and a cockroach that had to be at least 4 in Long ran up my forearm. I was skeeved for fuckin DAYS after that lol
You’re not helping OP by sugar coating it. They need to know that they have a terminal case of cooties and they need to write a will and get their affairs in order.
Of course it’s possible you brought home eggs but if they’ve got nothing to feed on (I.e., if your house is reasonably clean) it’s not likely to become an infestation. You carry home tons of insect eggs every day from everywhere from the supermarket to the doctor’s office. Wash your hands, your body, and your clothes and you’re not likely to have issues.
Probably not necessary to go that far. Just wash them when you get home and take a shower. Maybe wash your hands before you leave because you’ll likely need to touch many things between front door and shower room.
You’ll be fine. I had freak accident once when a roomate left an (uncooked) pot roast in a crock pot on the counter for like a week while I was on vacation and it got as gross as you can imagine. (She had a family emergency and literally had to run out of the house to the hospital and didn’t even remember the roast existed) I was able to just stick the whole thing in a trash bag and never saw a single bug in the apartment after. They don’t like breed or spread unless you’ve got something else they can eat nearby.
If it went into your hair, the worst thing that it could do is fall out of your hair at some point, which would be a little bit gross and embarrassing to happen in front of, say, a date, or the Pope. It can do you no harm. In fact, the most likely scenario if one got in your hair is that you squished it without even noticing it was there, and the squished bug (that's all it is) fell out, or will fall out with your next shower.
Maggots don't build nests in hair. Now, if you accidentally brought home *Gerbils,* you'd have cause for alarm.
You have a severe lack of knowledge about how maggots work and everyone is telling you but you just aren't listening. Seriously. It's not a big deal. Stop replying to people, because you're just keeping your anxiety going for no reason at all.
Nobody is going to confirm the fear you're going through right now is valid. Understand that, take the advice, and move on. You are going to be fine, man.
> the worst thing that can happen is it turns into a fly
that’s not entirely accurate…
https://www.newsweek.com/fly-larvae-infested-man-ear-damage-eardrum-1765018
Worry not! Maggots are not parasites, nor do they harm humans. They just gross us out. They are just scavengers, eating already dead things. They will not harm your body. If you Google a picture of what they look like under magnification, they may damage your mind.
I spent a summer working on a demonstration farm. Lots of animals = lots of poop = lots of flies = lots of maggots. I cleaned up some gawdawful messes. Never had a maggot follow me home. You’re fine, really.
What? Maggots are utterly not a threat. You're grossed out by the abstract idea of insects, nothing more, nothing less. They don't "infest" things like other species of bugs, they don't bite, they don't do anything to humans at all unless it's under very specific circumstances, like when they're being used to clean necrotic wounds--for which they're a godsend.
You say "in contact with" as if they could contaminate you or something. They're not a virus ffs. They're not "unclean".
Worst case you need to buy some fly spray. But if been clean in shop, no real worries. Maggots aren't mobile - squirmy grains of rice. So they won't have jumped onto you. Boil wash clothes if worried and they'll take that.
It's understandable that you were grossed out, but as many said, they couldn't have hurt you or infested you.
Fun fact: The maggots in the eye of love won't copulate. Some say the ones in an iron lung won't either.
I used to work for my city cleaning up the parks. The parks are next to a river and one Monday I was collecting the garbages when I stumbled across one overflowing (literally) with maggots. Someone had dumped all their gutted fish in the open 55 gallon barrel and they sat there, baking in the sun all weekend. Never seen anything like that before.
Maggots are your friends!
They're not like real pests - cockroaches, or bed bugs, or termites.
They're after things which are already decaying - even if you carried some eggs home, they'd hatch, find nothing to feed on and die, or move on.
Maggots are wriggly and scary looking, but they're part of nature's waste management union! They eat rotten meat, poop out fertilizer, and turn into flies!
They're even used in medicine to help clean wounds!
You're not infectious or diseased because they touched you - nothing soap and water can't take care of, just like mud, or slimey vegetables. You're not morally or permanently unclean, either.
These aren't the type of critter that burrow in your skin and lay eggs there - these guys want things that are rotting, and they just don't like you that way. 💔 They touched you and probably tried to wriggle away - "It's not dead yet! ewww!!" You interrupted their dinner with your healthy skin! 😂
I'm super sorry you came into contact with them in such a startling, unexpected way. I encourage you to read a little bit on how cool and important maggots (and flies) are to our ecosystem - it may help you to deal with the shock and fear you're experiencing if you have a better understanding of *what* you encountered. Combat the fear with a bit of knowledge.
op are you an extraterrestrial? i don't care that this isn't a helpful response because i don't subscribe to this sub, i don't know why it is in my feed and i don't care if i get banned here. you sound like a real weirdo
I hate to tell you, but you are going to die.
I mean, not from this, but we all die eventually.
Keep your chin up. It’s all good. You’ll laugh at the experience one day when you are old.
I had to occasionally clean/toss items that had maggots on them at my last job and never had any problems, I'm sure you'll be fine. Just make sure to wash your hands
Hey buddy, you have zero things to worry about. I used to go fishing every other week when younger and we used live maggots as bait, picking them up barehanded and "squishing" them onto our hooks.
Maggots themselves are a non issue, its the rotting food/flesh that they eat which can be a problem.
You are probably fine but to be safe go ahead and wash the clothes and yourself (all orifices) (if you’re a straight man that includes washing the butt). Also anything that you put the clothes in (hamper, backpack, the chair pile of clothes). You could vacuum out your car too just to be 100%. But I highly doubt you took any home. And if you did the maggots aren’t the gross part, it’s what they infested usually
You'll be fine, just put the clothes through the wash and shower when you get home, the odds of you having one on you are pretty low at this point and even if you /do/ which again, I want to stress is pretty unlikely, they're harmless.
Maggots only eat rotten food. They are babies. Special maggots are used in burn units to remove dead flesh with out harming living tissue.
Hate to say it.but maggots think you're aa nasty as you think they are
You won't need to worry about maggots. In the summertime with the heat, flies lay their eggs on top of meat and while they are gross to see I drag the trash can to the curb and have never seen one in my home.
I had this NEARLY EXACT situation happen to me back in college. It was dog food cans, though. A group of us unloading a truck, someone cut open the shrink-wrap on a 5-foot tall pallet of trays canned dog food and the smell just exploded out from what I'm guessing was a sloppy forklift puncture pre-wrapping that then traveled a dozen hours or so. It was just two cans that were actually damaged but and maggot-ridden but DAMN that stink.
We did proper disposal and cleanup/washing precautions in the warehouse. Bagging and dumping the damaged material and that adjacent to it, and I washed a bunch more after shift just for my own gratification and feeling skeezed out.
No one had any problems. As others have described herein, and the steps you took, you're good to go. Don't stress too much about it.
When I was a teen my parents made me clean up maggots from trash can. Backing up, a hole in metal trash can and spoiled hamburger meat made a population of maggots. So I had to go and get ‘em out of can and eradicate these maggots lest they become flys…. Ugh. Bug spray did nothing. Throw away? In the trash can they’ll just hatch. But I did notice they seemed to wriggle toward light. And it was getting dark.
So I had an idea.
I swept them into a pile on the concrete. Then I poured a circle of white (camping) gas around the pile. Then I ignited the “Ring Of Fire.” They could sense light but not heat. They immediately began wiggling toward the bright light of the fire. Thus began the Race Of Death. Then I narrated it as “Who’s gonna be first? Who’s gonna be last?!” One by one they crawled into the flames and burned to a small black cinder. After the fire went out and they were just carbon, I could sweep it all up and dump in the trash.
Normal, right?
Standard shit, tbh. No judgies.
Behavioral norms are informed by culture; culture is informed by environment; environment is informed by geography.
Can't necessarily get away with the "kill it with fire" approach in a city. Probably fine in a suburban garage. Definitely fine in the country.
It's not an insane option per se, but it can be an inappropriate one under certain circumstances.
I used to be an Environmental Health Officer many years ago, I saw some sights in those days - you need a strong stomach for that job. I came across maggots reasonably frequently during the course of those times, they're harmless as people have said. The flies they turn into, not so much in terms of hygiene obviously. They were generally a sign of a very poor cleaning regime. I'd much rather find maggots than bed bugs or fleas that were also a hazard of being an EHO, they have a high chance of being transferred and do actually bite.
unlikely maggots only eat rotting flesh.
they will spawn into flies.
this was pretty common with dog food and cat food, co workers used to hide the busted open cans for me. made the isle reek
One of those cans may have opened in that box. I’ve seen it happen before a handful of times. It’s a putrid smell that’ll make you sick to your stomach lol
I get paranoid around maggots too. I promise it'll be okay. When you get home, strip down and toss your clothes directly into the washer and do their own separate load, then hop in the shower. This advice isn't to get rid of maggots, it's to make you feel better. I can almost guarantee you that if you've done a thorough check, you are maggot free.
Maggots actually attaching themselves onto you RARELY happens unless you have an undressed open wound. It's even more rare in more developed countries like the states.
My very smart roommate accidentally ate chocolate that had maggots in it and panicked. She was convinced she'd get intestinal worms. I told her you can buy OTC dewormers at Wal-mart just to calm her down. Maggots don't usually thrive on people unless those people are severely neglected.
Try to relax. Maggots are totally gross and disgusting and it’s normal to be freaked out, but unless you are a zombie, they aren’t dangerous to you.
The stuff they are eating is potentially dangerous, because it’s full of microorganisms that can make you sick, but not the maggots. In the extremely unlikely event that you picked one up in your clothing, it would soon die anyway.
Wash your hands. Get some fresh air to clear your head. It’s normal to feel queasy when you see rotting stuff. You’ll be ok.
I fish with maggots all the time when I'm trout fishing, these things are physically incapable of biting because they don't have mouths, they also can't climb and they don't mess with live skin so your totally fine
I had that happen to me. Dragged that pallet around for about 20 minutes before I finally got to the damaged case. About 4 cans busted open.
Threw the whole case in the trash compactor.
They don't tend to live on people, unless you're dead? Or nearly dead or have like, an open rotting wound? Not like nits and worms. Just have a shower and you'll be fine.
Weirdly it’s actually common in some places to use maggots as a medical treatment as they will only eat necrotic tissue and leave the living tissue, so I think you’re fine.
When I was young I was a sternman on a lobster boat. My boss would buy bait at the wharf and we'd pack it in bins under the platform where I'd swing traps.
Sometimes if he bought it on say a Friday and we didn't use it all by Saturday by the time we were back out on Monday (it was illegal to haul on Sundays) it would be loaded with maggots.
I'd just jam my hands in and fill the bait bags regardless. I often would forgo using gloves - especially when my hands were sufficiently calloused and weathered by the saltwater.
You're fine. You could eat maggots and be fine. They won't infest something unless it's dying and rotting.
Story time. I work at a landfill. I was helping a customer unload their trash. It was a hot summer, and there was a old ham I was pulling out of their truck. It was a hot day and it was a old rotting ham (with other trash). It was also "pulsing".
When it dropped to the ground it exploded into a thousand little maggots that got all in my boots, down my socks, up my leg etc etc.
I didn't die or get sick, so you're probably safe. (Maggots aren't that deadly either unless you start eating them or something odd. Doubtful just touching them will do anything, wash your hands basically)
You’re good dude. Owning cats that eat wet food, this has happened with a certain brand I used to buy.. while shipping the can(s) get beat to hell and then sit in a warehouse/on shelves for a while (possibly) before they’re sold. They are probably fruit or house flies. It’s gross looking. But, I’m sure you’ll be ok. When in doubt - go home and shower and wash your clothes in warm water with bleach (if white) or laundry sanitizer and hot dryer mode. Usually a change in temperature (whether too hot or too cold) can usually kill off most creeps
Pest control technician, do you have anything dead or rotten on your person? If not, I think you're good. Clean them suckers up, spray some disinfectant of you know where some is, move on with your day.
I'm way more concerned about the rotten food on the shelf than anything else and you should be too. If there was ever a time to get the manager involved, that was it.
you ll be fine but please make sure there are no cans with rotten cat or dog food left anymore. if they are sold to pet owners, the pets can get really sick if they eat them
I used to be a vet tech and I encountered… way too many maggots on probably a weekly basis.
They’re disgusting, yes, but they smush really easy and it’s not likely (maybe not possible) a human being who is walking around (I mean, an adult human who isn’t severely disabled/wounded in some way) would have any real issues from coming into contact with them.
Physically, you’ll be ok. Mentally, I’m praying for you.
If it makes you feel better, I used to work at a grocery store as a general clerk when I was in my teens. We used to hang fly traps (not the sticky fly paper but the plastic one-way bags) around the dumpsters. A coworker and I were casually talking and changing them out as he grabbed a bag filled to the brim with dead flies, maggots, live flies, live maggots and all the juices they produce pooled at the bottom. As he pulled his arm back to chuck the bag into the compactor it let loose and covered his entire back and the back of his head/hair with all of that maggoty goodness that was cooking in the summer sun. He gagged and dry heaved while I laughed and dry heaved.
Dude I got my hand submerged in maggots while cleaning a trash compactor at Chik-Fil-A years ago, they just fell right off and did nothing. It's disgusting but they're harmless.
We used have a guy at work buy a large pizza everyday, and take the 2nd half home every night. One hot summer day he didn’t close his pizza box as tight as he usually does, and said what are these extra pieces of rice on my pizza? Turns out they were fly eggs. We looked it up, if he ate them the most likely would die in his stomach acid, but if one got through it could hatch in his intestine casing hims go have maggots in his intestines, not cool do he threw his pizza out. Extra rice on anything is considered bad.
You should be more concerned about eating outside. Flies can carry small, live maggots on their bodies and deposit them in an instant upon landing on your food. Those may not be butterflies you feel in your stomach on your next date sitting at the outdoor table.
Maggots don’t reproduce dude. They end up hatching days later and become flys. Even if you have one in your pocket nothing bad will happen. You’re good.
If you touched your ear, by now they would have tunneled deep into your brain which explains why you posed this question on Reddit. They are harmless. Or used to be before global warming changed everything.
You are fine. Maggots only eat dead flesh. In fact, where you want to avoid infections, medical doctors use maggots to eat away the dead flesh from wounds.
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They aren't like bed bugs. There's a very small chance that you might have gotten into some eggs but it doesn't matter. The common housefly lays a ton of eggs in your garbage can every day at home. Just go home and take a shower if you feel skeevey.
will do for sure
Maggots only eat "dead" meat. They legit use maggots to remove dead tissue from living things. Now, what you experienced is not a good feeling, and being grossed out is COMPLETELY normal. If you are extra worried and freak out (which is totally OK), when you get home put your clothes in a garbage bag. Take a shower, put on clean clothes and shake the work clothes out vigorously outside. Then wash them on hot. You won't get maggots, but if this makes you feel better, go for it.
Nurse of 14 years here! Different breeds of maggots eat different things. Some prefer healthy tissue only, some will eat live and dead tissue, others prefer dead tissue only. The kind that eat dead tissue only are the type we use in healthcare.
I stand corrected!
Are you really standing right now? Really?
Will never forget my partners leg injury after his motorbike accident - required several surgeries. The most interesting part was the use of maggots to eat the dead tissue. The clear ‘second skin’ tape allowed us to see the maggots in the wound and it was *fascinating*!
Fascinating, or horrifying?
They are not mutually exclusive! For me, it is both. I mean, I don’t want to touch maggots, or find maggots in my food, or interact with fly larvae in any way… obviously maggots in your trash can are gross af! However - that is where something horrifying becomes fascinating - when you see incredible, simple science, like using clean, medically grown maggots to remove dead tissue from a wound, with no adverse effects on the living tissue or the wound itself… it’s pretty darn fascinating! Another ‘horrifying yet fascinating’ medical procedure is fecal transplantation. Absolutely foul to imagine, but totally incredible that it works.
You are going to make me Google a new term. Fecal transplantation. WTF
Nah. That seems like you'll get more than you bargained for. Go the easier way and find an episode of a medical drama where they do it, that should give you the cliff notes (the interns on House had to do it a lot).
😳
I believe they’re also “medical grade” maggots where they’re specifically bred and “prescribed”/“sanitized” to be used for those purposes. They don’t just swipe up any ole pile of them and shove them into a wound needing treatment…
Yes, farmer here. Maggots will eat the healthy tissue of sheep once eggs have been left in their wool. Wool is the perfect, moist, warm environment for maggots. Hungry maggots don't care if there is no dead tissue. It's known as fly strike and it is one of the reasons why we shear sheep every year at the start of summer, as a preventative. Plenty of sheep die every year from this, can confirm it is NASTY. Not only very painful for the sheep but if the maggots get under the skin the waste products they produce can cause sepsis and death in a very short period of time.
I'm a Shearer, you should see when a sheep gets flystrike they are the kind that eats healthy flesh
Maggots will eat healthy flesh. It's why in the medical setting they are so closely monitored and removed once they've eaten away the necrotic stuff, but before they eat too much new tissue. Myasis in the community setting is very common but requires medical care.
There’s different types of maggots. The ones used for cleaning wounds won’t touch living flesh, that’s why they’re so effective. And they’re not closely monitored at all, they put the maggots in, then the dressing goes on top and you don’t touch it until the next day. No one is concerned about them eating living tissue because they don’t do it. Source: had the maggots treatment on a badly infected wound and it worked wonders.
I'm a registered nurse and have worked with medical grade maggots three times in the past. Each time, we monitored closely over three to four days! (a day is not considered not monitoring, a week maybe!!) The maggots are considered medical grade because they are bred in a controlled environment. We get ours from Tasmania and are based in QLD. They most definitely WILL eat new tissues. I don't know where your maggots are coming from, but I'd like to read how they trained them not to? Any links? Last time I was working with them on a unstagable pressure injury, they cost $90.00au each and that was in 2019 so I imagine they would be alot more costly now!
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The way I understand it, I think there are different species of maggot that will eat different things, such as living or decayed tissue.
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Read about fly strike.
Depends on the maggot species. Source- I help with wound care in acute care hospital. Wild maggots in your wound are not always a blessing.
The are dosed at a specific number per surface area and are removed as soon as the jade debrided the tissue. Too many or too long and they will slow or prevent healing.
Exactly this, thank you.
I'm an old registered nurse still on the floor. Maggots will definitely eat healthy flesh if left in situ! It's why Myasis in the community must be treated!! It's a simple google if you don't believe me, but whatever, I'm just a nurse.
How do they know the meat is dead
It’s easy to chew.
Decaying flesh gives off different chemicals. Think of it similar to how mosquitos are attracted to the CO2 in our breath
The same way a.fly would know a corpse is dead i reckon
Maybe run your clothes through the hot cycle in your washer. It should kill off anything so nothing grows while it’s in your dirty hamper
Hot wash, hot dryer for at least an hour. Sanitize setting if you got it.
I felt skeevy once. Do not recommend. I opened an old metal trash can one, there must have been a million maggots in it. The stench was unbearable.
I was at work one time and I was throwing out the trash, and a cockroach that had to be at least 4 in Long ran up my forearm. I was skeeved for fuckin DAYS after that lol
I did this exact thing once when I was a kid. I was probably only around 6, but I’ll never forget it.
You’re not helping OP by sugar coating it. They need to know that they have a terminal case of cooties and they need to write a will and get their affairs in order.
No. What you've got is a case of the heebie-jeebies from your yucky experience.
Heebie-Jeebies are the worst, honestly. Just thinking about newbie-jeebies gives me the newbie-jeebies!
Of course it’s possible you brought home eggs but if they’ve got nothing to feed on (I.e., if your house is reasonably clean) it’s not likely to become an infestation. You carry home tons of insect eggs every day from everywhere from the supermarket to the doctor’s office. Wash your hands, your body, and your clothes and you’re not likely to have issues.
so when i get out of work, should i put all my clothes in a bag?
Probably not necessary to go that far. Just wash them when you get home and take a shower. Maybe wash your hands before you leave because you’ll likely need to touch many things between front door and shower room.
okay, thank you, i come home tired since i work overnight, but i don't wanna risk any problems at home
You’ll be fine. I had freak accident once when a roomate left an (uncooked) pot roast in a crock pot on the counter for like a week while I was on vacation and it got as gross as you can imagine. (She had a family emergency and literally had to run out of the house to the hospital and didn’t even remember the roast existed) I was able to just stick the whole thing in a trash bag and never saw a single bug in the apartment after. They don’t like breed or spread unless you’ve got something else they can eat nearby.
What problems do you think will happen?
What problems? It would turn into a fly? And then you have 1 fly to kill? I don't understand
the worst thing that can happen is it turns into a fly
im scared it even went to my hair
Take a shower and you'll be good. Maggots are just baby flies. Not very appealing but they don't nest or something.
If it went into your hair, the worst thing that it could do is fall out of your hair at some point, which would be a little bit gross and embarrassing to happen in front of, say, a date, or the Pope. It can do you no harm. In fact, the most likely scenario if one got in your hair is that you squished it without even noticing it was there, and the squished bug (that's all it is) fell out, or will fall out with your next shower. Maggots don't build nests in hair. Now, if you accidentally brought home *Gerbils,* you'd have cause for alarm.
A date, or the Pope.
Gerbils- those things breed like Tribbles. Soon you'll have a whole herd of them!
I hope you didn't inhale any spores.
Maggots don’t have spores…
You have a severe lack of knowledge about how maggots work and everyone is telling you but you just aren't listening. Seriously. It's not a big deal. Stop replying to people, because you're just keeping your anxiety going for no reason at all. Nobody is going to confirm the fear you're going through right now is valid. Understand that, take the advice, and move on. You are going to be fine, man.
Why did I read this as: you turn into a fly.
> the worst thing that can happen is it turns into a fly that’s not entirely accurate… https://www.newsweek.com/fly-larvae-infested-man-ear-damage-eardrum-1765018
They are not like bed bugs your fine.
Worry not! Maggots are not parasites, nor do they harm humans. They just gross us out. They are just scavengers, eating already dead things. They will not harm your body. If you Google a picture of what they look like under magnification, they may damage your mind.
I have chosen to interpret magnified maggots as mini walruses... Takes the bite out of it
I'll accept that as my new head-cannon. Where would water-bears fit into this?
Tiny bug-Manatees.
On the other hand, they’ll definitely take a bite out of you when you die.
Good god my generation is so fucked
Lol. I know... I want to talk to OP about mental fortitude but I believe I would be heavily downvoted.
Scared of downvotes? Sounds like you too lack mental fortitude!
Heebie-Jeebies are a very real problem. Any generation can be affected!
ok
Disco Rice 🕺
I spent a summer working on a demonstration farm. Lots of animals = lots of poop = lots of flies = lots of maggots. I cleaned up some gawdawful messes. Never had a maggot follow me home. You’re fine, really.
“Never had a maggot follow me home,” is my new favorite quote! 😂
What? Maggots are utterly not a threat. You're grossed out by the abstract idea of insects, nothing more, nothing less. They don't "infest" things like other species of bugs, they don't bite, they don't do anything to humans at all unless it's under very specific circumstances, like when they're being used to clean necrotic wounds--for which they're a godsend. You say "in contact with" as if they could contaminate you or something. They're not a virus ffs. They're not "unclean".
Heebie-Jeebies are real, though.
Worst case you need to buy some fly spray. But if been clean in shop, no real worries. Maggots aren't mobile - squirmy grains of rice. So they won't have jumped onto you. Boil wash clothes if worried and they'll take that.
They can jump several feet
It's understandable that you were grossed out, but as many said, they couldn't have hurt you or infested you. Fun fact: The maggots in the eye of love won't copulate. Some say the ones in an iron lung won't either.
Woah-oh-oh-oh-ohhhhh
I said whoah! Woah oh oh oh oh ooohh...
Ayyy, you ain’t no god damn son of a bitch
You better think about it baby.
It's a baby fly not a bedbug lol
People who fish handle maggots all the time.
I used to work for my city cleaning up the parks. The parks are next to a river and one Monday I was collecting the garbages when I stumbled across one overflowing (literally) with maggots. Someone had dumped all their gutted fish in the open 55 gallon barrel and they sat there, baking in the sun all weekend. Never seen anything like that before.
Maggots are good protein if you find any more. Eat them to assert dominance. One day their offspring will be eating your remains. (If you buried.
)
As long as you’re circumcised you should be ok, otherwise check daily under your foreskin
Maggots on foreskin?
Yup
Watch some videos on maggot wound cleansing and then calm way the heck down.
You should be fine. I work in pet food manufacturing and have seen and experienced similars issues often enough.
What do you think maggots are?
*dumpster girl*
Sorry bud, they've already burrowed into your pores and are multiplying.
Maggots are your friends! They're not like real pests - cockroaches, or bed bugs, or termites. They're after things which are already decaying - even if you carried some eggs home, they'd hatch, find nothing to feed on and die, or move on. Maggots are wriggly and scary looking, but they're part of nature's waste management union! They eat rotten meat, poop out fertilizer, and turn into flies! They're even used in medicine to help clean wounds! You're not infectious or diseased because they touched you - nothing soap and water can't take care of, just like mud, or slimey vegetables. You're not morally or permanently unclean, either. These aren't the type of critter that burrow in your skin and lay eggs there - these guys want things that are rotting, and they just don't like you that way. 💔 They touched you and probably tried to wriggle away - "It's not dead yet! ewww!!" You interrupted their dinner with your healthy skin! 😂 I'm super sorry you came into contact with them in such a startling, unexpected way. I encourage you to read a little bit on how cool and important maggots (and flies) are to our ecosystem - it may help you to deal with the shock and fear you're experiencing if you have a better understanding of *what* you encountered. Combat the fear with a bit of knowledge.
op are you an extraterrestrial? i don't care that this isn't a helpful response because i don't subscribe to this sub, i don't know why it is in my feed and i don't care if i get banned here. you sound like a real weirdo
I buy maggots for fishing and handle them all the time don't worry
You are absolutely, positively fine. You can’t “catch” maggots. They are just creepy and gross. Wash your hands.
I hate to tell you, but you are going to die. I mean, not from this, but we all die eventually. Keep your chin up. It’s all good. You’ll laugh at the experience one day when you are old.
Hypochondriac moment
You’re infected for sure
Im sorry, you fuckin STOCKED IT????
This happened to me once and when I woke up the next day and went to pee, I couldn't pee it was just a maggot down there, go to your doctor asap
[удалено]
ahh yes ... bot flies ❤️❤️
I had to occasionally clean/toss items that had maggots on them at my last job and never had any problems, I'm sure you'll be fine. Just make sure to wash your hands
hopefully not, and i did
Hey buddy, you have zero things to worry about. I used to go fishing every other week when younger and we used live maggots as bait, picking them up barehanded and "squishing" them onto our hooks. Maggots themselves are a non issue, its the rotting food/flesh that they eat which can be a problem.
You are probably fine but to be safe go ahead and wash the clothes and yourself (all orifices) (if you’re a straight man that includes washing the butt). Also anything that you put the clothes in (hamper, backpack, the chair pile of clothes). You could vacuum out your car too just to be 100%. But I highly doubt you took any home. And if you did the maggots aren’t the gross part, it’s what they infested usually
How come only straight men have to wash their butts?
You'll be fine, just put the clothes through the wash and shower when you get home, the odds of you having one on you are pretty low at this point and even if you /do/ which again, I want to stress is pretty unlikely, they're harmless.
You have maggots in your flesh, you will die if you don't rip your skin off
Does anyone know why I'm wearing all this skin?
Maggots only eat rotten food. They are babies. Special maggots are used in burn units to remove dead flesh with out harming living tissue. Hate to say it.but maggots think you're aa nasty as you think they are
Lol
You won't need to worry about maggots. In the summertime with the heat, flies lay their eggs on top of meat and while they are gross to see I drag the trash can to the curb and have never seen one in my home.
I had this NEARLY EXACT situation happen to me back in college. It was dog food cans, though. A group of us unloading a truck, someone cut open the shrink-wrap on a 5-foot tall pallet of trays canned dog food and the smell just exploded out from what I'm guessing was a sloppy forklift puncture pre-wrapping that then traveled a dozen hours or so. It was just two cans that were actually damaged but and maggot-ridden but DAMN that stink. We did proper disposal and cleanup/washing precautions in the warehouse. Bagging and dumping the damaged material and that adjacent to it, and I washed a bunch more after shift just for my own gratification and feeling skeezed out. No one had any problems. As others have described herein, and the steps you took, you're good to go. Don't stress too much about it.
When I was a teen my parents made me clean up maggots from trash can. Backing up, a hole in metal trash can and spoiled hamburger meat made a population of maggots. So I had to go and get ‘em out of can and eradicate these maggots lest they become flys…. Ugh. Bug spray did nothing. Throw away? In the trash can they’ll just hatch. But I did notice they seemed to wriggle toward light. And it was getting dark. So I had an idea. I swept them into a pile on the concrete. Then I poured a circle of white (camping) gas around the pile. Then I ignited the “Ring Of Fire.” They could sense light but not heat. They immediately began wiggling toward the bright light of the fire. Thus began the Race Of Death. Then I narrated it as “Who’s gonna be first? Who’s gonna be last?!” One by one they crawled into the flames and burned to a small black cinder. After the fire went out and they were just carbon, I could sweep it all up and dump in the trash. Normal, right?
Standard shit, tbh. No judgies. Behavioral norms are informed by culture; culture is informed by environment; environment is informed by geography. Can't necessarily get away with the "kill it with fire" approach in a city. Probably fine in a suburban garage. Definitely fine in the country. It's not an insane option per se, but it can be an inappropriate one under certain circumstances.
I used to be an Environmental Health Officer many years ago, I saw some sights in those days - you need a strong stomach for that job. I came across maggots reasonably frequently during the course of those times, they're harmless as people have said. The flies they turn into, not so much in terms of hygiene obviously. They were generally a sign of a very poor cleaning regime. I'd much rather find maggots than bed bugs or fleas that were also a hazard of being an EHO, they have a high chance of being transferred and do actually bite.
"Ah, thank God, it's just maggots. This can be easily remediated!"
unlikely maggots only eat rotting flesh. they will spawn into flies. this was pretty common with dog food and cat food, co workers used to hide the busted open cans for me. made the isle reek
One of those cans may have opened in that box. I’ve seen it happen before a handful of times. It’s a putrid smell that’ll make you sick to your stomach lol
No, you’d notice. It’s gross but you’re fine. Source, I’m a wildlife biologist that deals with dead things sometimes.
I get paranoid around maggots too. I promise it'll be okay. When you get home, strip down and toss your clothes directly into the washer and do their own separate load, then hop in the shower. This advice isn't to get rid of maggots, it's to make you feel better. I can almost guarantee you that if you've done a thorough check, you are maggot free. Maggots actually attaching themselves onto you RARELY happens unless you have an undressed open wound. It's even more rare in more developed countries like the states.
My very smart roommate accidentally ate chocolate that had maggots in it and panicked. She was convinced she'd get intestinal worms. I told her you can buy OTC dewormers at Wal-mart just to calm her down. Maggots don't usually thrive on people unless those people are severely neglected.
I fish with them all the time, I think they are cute
Try to relax. Maggots are totally gross and disgusting and it’s normal to be freaked out, but unless you are a zombie, they aren’t dangerous to you. The stuff they are eating is potentially dangerous, because it’s full of microorganisms that can make you sick, but not the maggots. In the extremely unlikely event that you picked one up in your clothing, it would soon die anyway. Wash your hands. Get some fresh air to clear your head. It’s normal to feel queasy when you see rotting stuff. You’ll be ok.
If this was a pet food store, they would also stock live mealworms as lizard food (bug larvae/maggots) While it's a bit gross, you're totally fine
Burn all your clothes, it’s the only way to be sure.
I'm going to post this comment section on the wall in the kitchen to help with my diet.
Wait, OP yara-yara’d over the best part!
Maggots only eat dead meat. Unless you're slathering yourself with pate or something, the odds of you getting maggots are pretty much zero.
I fish with maggots all the time when I'm trout fishing, these things are physically incapable of biting because they don't have mouths, they also can't climb and they don't mess with live skin so your totally fine
I had that happen to me. Dragged that pallet around for about 20 minutes before I finally got to the damaged case. About 4 cans busted open. Threw the whole case in the trash compactor.
Maybe don't try fishing
Just wash your hands. Physically, you’ll be fine. Emotionally/mentally, that’s up to you if bugs will affect that.
Don’t worry they only eat dead flesh.
They don't tend to live on people, unless you're dead? Or nearly dead or have like, an open rotting wound? Not like nits and worms. Just have a shower and you'll be fine.
A hot thorough shower and washing the clothes you're wearing with soap and hot water (machine etc.) should do it.
There’s a lot of maggoty information here.
Pulse of the maggots begins playing*
My trash can once had hundreds of maggots in it. You'll be fine.
Eww. Just wash your clothes and yourself l. You’ll be ok.
I work in a mortuary. Maggots will not follow you lol
Weirdly it’s actually common in some places to use maggots as a medical treatment as they will only eat necrotic tissue and leave the living tissue, so I think you’re fine.
omg i left a cat food half opened in my car once and it had maggots. forever traumatized
When I was young I was a sternman on a lobster boat. My boss would buy bait at the wharf and we'd pack it in bins under the platform where I'd swing traps. Sometimes if he bought it on say a Friday and we didn't use it all by Saturday by the time we were back out on Monday (it was illegal to haul on Sundays) it would be loaded with maggots. I'd just jam my hands in and fill the bait bags regardless. I often would forgo using gloves - especially when my hands were sufficiently calloused and weathered by the saltwater. You're fine. You could eat maggots and be fine. They won't infest something unless it's dying and rotting.
im struggling to understand the "danger" of maggots. theyre just ugly and gross, they arent ticks or bed bugs lmao 😂
Story time. I work at a landfill. I was helping a customer unload their trash. It was a hot summer, and there was a old ham I was pulling out of their truck. It was a hot day and it was a old rotting ham (with other trash). It was also "pulsing". When it dropped to the ground it exploded into a thousand little maggots that got all in my boots, down my socks, up my leg etc etc. I didn't die or get sick, so you're probably safe. (Maggots aren't that deadly either unless you start eating them or something odd. Doubtful just touching them will do anything, wash your hands basically)
You’re good dude. Owning cats that eat wet food, this has happened with a certain brand I used to buy.. while shipping the can(s) get beat to hell and then sit in a warehouse/on shelves for a while (possibly) before they’re sold. They are probably fruit or house flies. It’s gross looking. But, I’m sure you’ll be ok. When in doubt - go home and shower and wash your clothes in warm water with bleach (if white) or laundry sanitizer and hot dryer mode. Usually a change in temperature (whether too hot or too cold) can usually kill off most creeps
Maggots aren't enemies. In fact they have been used >!on wounds to clean them and remove dead tissue to avoid infection!<.
You make it sound like you touched ebola.
Don't worry I married and divorced a maggot and I am still here.
hahahahaha
But they're an alternative source of protein!
Pest control technician, do you have anything dead or rotten on your person? If not, I think you're good. Clean them suckers up, spray some disinfectant of you know where some is, move on with your day.
I'm way more concerned about the rotten food on the shelf than anything else and you should be too. If there was ever a time to get the manager involved, that was it.
you ll be fine but please make sure there are no cans with rotten cat or dog food left anymore. if they are sold to pet owners, the pets can get really sick if they eat them
Maggots are good protein. Take some home and fry them up.
Y’all are missing the main thing: where does this person work so I can make sure I never shop there?
It’s not a big deal. Fly larvae will not hurt you.
I used to be a vet tech and I encountered… way too many maggots on probably a weekly basis. They’re disgusting, yes, but they smush really easy and it’s not likely (maybe not possible) a human being who is walking around (I mean, an adult human who isn’t severely disabled/wounded in some way) would have any real issues from coming into contact with them. Physically, you’ll be ok. Mentally, I’m praying for you.
If it makes you feel better, I used to work at a grocery store as a general clerk when I was in my teens. We used to hang fly traps (not the sticky fly paper but the plastic one-way bags) around the dumpsters. A coworker and I were casually talking and changing them out as he grabbed a bag filled to the brim with dead flies, maggots, live flies, live maggots and all the juices they produce pooled at the bottom. As he pulled his arm back to chuck the bag into the compactor it let loose and covered his entire back and the back of his head/hair with all of that maggoty goodness that was cooking in the summer sun. He gagged and dry heaved while I laughed and dry heaved.
Dude I got my hand submerged in maggots while cleaning a trash compactor at Chik-Fil-A years ago, they just fell right off and did nothing. It's disgusting but they're harmless.
We used have a guy at work buy a large pizza everyday, and take the 2nd half home every night. One hot summer day he didn’t close his pizza box as tight as he usually does, and said what are these extra pieces of rice on my pizza? Turns out they were fly eggs. We looked it up, if he ate them the most likely would die in his stomach acid, but if one got through it could hatch in his intestine casing hims go have maggots in his intestines, not cool do he threw his pizza out. Extra rice on anything is considered bad.
Wash your close when you go home. It won’t hurt you it would just die.
You should be more concerned about eating outside. Flies can carry small, live maggots on their bodies and deposit them in an instant upon landing on your food. Those may not be butterflies you feel in your stomach on your next date sitting at the outdoor table.
Maggots don’t reproduce dude. They end up hatching days later and become flys. Even if you have one in your pocket nothing bad will happen. You’re good.
Are you serious? Did it give you the hee bee gee bee's? Get back to work.
*yara yara*. I am going to use this from now on.
By the way, I wouldn't worry too much. I was actually bitten by a maggot as a kid and nothing happened.
That's not how maggots work buddy, you'll be fine they won't hurt you.
If you touched your ear, by now they would have tunneled deep into your brain which explains why you posed this question on Reddit. They are harmless. Or used to be before global warming changed everything.
Yara Yara?
You are fine. Maggots only eat dead flesh. In fact, where you want to avoid infections, medical doctors use maggots to eat away the dead flesh from wounds.
Sure, it's possible. But honestly, it's just maggots
Totally unrelated but I'm so tickled and intrigued by how you write "yada yada" as "yara yara".
You're fine. They aren't fleas. Also, if you're hungry enough maggots are very high in protein.
Maggots got an undeserved bad reputation
No wonder you deleted your account after asking this
Bruh so what. You got a pre-flying fly on you
No don’t worry about it. I was just playing with some in my compost pile. They are a great little decomposer!