Home Invasion

I like my house. It’s more than just a roof over my head. It’s the place I retreat to at the end of the working day, my haven. The bag is dumped on the floor, the kettle switched on, and I feel embraced by the warmth of the sun pouring in the windows. I feel cocooned, safe and at peace with the world.

In the last few days however, this peaceful existence has been undermined. I’ve had to share my space, not with a friendly visitor, but with at least two dozen unwelcome invaders. I rarely eat meat, so I know it wasn’t my cooking that attracted them. I also know my fortress is virtually impenetrable, but there they were, two flies zooming around the lounge room the other night. Not blowflies, just normal house flies, which I thought was strange given the cold temperatures outside. Had they snuck in for extra warmth?

Dispatched them forthwith, but when I came home from work the next day there were several on the dining room and kitchen windows basking in the sun, one in the bathroom, another in the bedroom, then as the sun made its way around to the lounge room even more appeared.

My detective skills concluded it had to be an inside job. Louie the Fly obviously had something to do with it, but it was Lou Lou who had caused this current predicament. Somewhere in the past few months some dear little female bearing her bacteria laden maggot producing progeny had alighted somewhere in the house, hiding her collection of eggs or whatever flies do to propagate the species. I don’t know what the gestation period of house flies is, but whatever was lurking unseen tucked away somewhere nice and warm and cosy had now borne fruit, and I have a fly graveyard scattered all over the house as grisly evidence.

Thought I’d seen the last of them yesterday, but there in the bathroom this morning were two more, who didn’t last long, and another two in the dining room when I came home, so I’m not heading round with the vacuum cleaner until I’m convinced the invasion and subsequent carnage is over. At least I’m thankful they all didn’t hatch at once. Twenty-odd maggot boxes in one hit circling overhead and dive-bombing would’ve been a bit much.