The phenomenon may be familiar especially to people living in apartment buildings. The small one, black maggots swarm around sanitary ware and drains, and they usually call attention to some problem. These strange invaders are actually the larvae of the channel fly, which consider the sewage network running under wet rooms as a residence.
What external characteristics do insects have??
Although the channel fly, also known as the butterfly, does not pose a health risk, it is still worth dealing with. The larvae are relatively easy to recognize, they are a few millimeters long, however, their striped pattern and the hairs covering their bodies can only be seen very closely. They have characteristic tentacles, and in the water they move like worms.
Where there is a larva, you can always see it flying there, also adult insects. These look like tiny flies, but fluff grows on their wings. They are not very agile, so it's easy to finish them off. However, individual extermination is not expedient. The sewer fly should not be confused with its blood-sucking and disease-spreading relatives.
A channel fly can be useful?
Sewer flies that appear in homes are used to the proximity of humans, out there in nature, they only occur in exceptional cases. Because their old habitats were also swampy areas, therefore, they feel very comfortable in the sewer network of residential buildings. They play an important role in preventing blockages, with their strong chewing organs, they destroy hard the deposits stuck to the walls of the wires. They practically live off this greasy dirt.
If they multiply too much, they themselves cause blockages in the system. This rarely happens, since the descending water jet does not allow it at normal speed, so that the larvae stick in one place. Their extermination, especially in those condominiums, where the entire network is infected, almost impossible. In apartments, the most can be done by eliminating stagnant water. This is why it's important, that, if sewer flies suddenly appear in the bath, the owner may also suspect some other problem. As long as hydration persists, the larvae of the butterfly will not disappear around the sanitary ware either.
In addition, regular maintenance tasks should not be forgotten, in a clean and maintained drain, it is more difficult for insects to settle in the absence of food. The already well-known home methods, such as a vinegar-baking soda mixture can help cleanse the system of fatty deposits.
A personal experience
One of our readers tells it below, what problems was predicted by the sudden appearance of sewer flies in the tray of the shower cubicle.
My husband and I moved into our new apartment last summer. Everything was fine for a long time, a bathroom it underwent a complete renovation a few months earlier. Under the cover, underfloor heating was installed. The first maggots appeared sometime around September in the shower tray drain. Because we have never seen a similar phenomenon before, we found it by searching through the internet, that these are practically harmless larvae. Interesting, because we have met the adult channel fly itself before, but we thought it was muslin.
We tried to pay more attention to drain for cleaning, and the drain was regularly cleaned, but somehow we still couldn't get rid of the unpleasant strangers. To that, that the larvae are actually side effects of an invisible problem, we figured it out for a different reason. Looking for a professional, it became clear immediately, that the floor under the shower tray has been wet for quite some time, the wall running behind it was also wet. The channel flies came to the surface along with the stagnant water. The tray is completely destroyed, it needed new tiling and a new shower. As soon as we fixed the problems, the larvae also disappeared from the bathroom.
