Bugs in the toilet!

[ShrimpBurrito]

I'm not one who is squeemish -- I've seen more gore, blood, and nastiness than most people even think about, but there is one thing I have a real problem with -- bugs. They are vile. They need to be destroyed. Ugh.

So you might imagine my dismay when I pulled up the top of the toilet (that darn vinyl skirt is giving me problems again), and I saw hundreds or thousands of larvae of some sort. They weren't moving, so at first I just thought they were bits of toilet paper. But I did think it was odd that these "bits of toilet paper" were all over the tank-side of the chute, all over the underside of the top half of the toilet, and everywhere else.

But I've taken the toilet apart before, and it didn't look like the toilet paper I had seen then, so I took a closer look. Slightly smaller than maggots, and brown in color. I'm not sure if they are brown when they are alive, or if the Aqua Chem turned them that way, but THEY WERE FOUL!!! I hosed them down into the bottom of the toilet, so hopefully they'll be outta there during the next dump.

As I said before, I've taken apart the toilet before -- maybe 6 months ago -- and I was larvae free. And prior to that, we have had the TM for about a year, and use it about once a month. So why larvae all of a sudden?

The ONLY thing I have changed is that I have started leaving the toilet charged while in storage. I've done it for the past 2 trips. So, for those of you who do that, Wayne :D, and would prefer not to have prehistoric creatures crawling in your cathole, you might want to take a closer look to see if you have a problem.

If that's not the problem, I have no idea what is. Does anyone have any ideas? The Thetford manual does specifically state to store the unit evacuated, but I wouldn't have thought for a moment that anything could grow in those chemicals. Perhaps the toilet charge created a moist environment above the charge line (and thus relatively non-toxic), and those bas**rds flourished in the chemical-free zone.

Does anyone wash out their Thetford after dumping? I never thought it would be very productive because of the screen cone.

I'm still disgusted. Yuck. I feel violated. I need to go take a shower.

Dave

[B_and_D]

First of all, let me say EEEEEEEEWWWWWWWW! If you have a DW and DK's, I hope you didn't share this sight with any of them. My daughter would have serious second thoughts about visiting the Thetford again after seeing that (I would too :eek:).

Do you think they could be a variety of small fly larvae?

We keep a compost bucket under our sink at home and have had problems with larvae of different types under there, one solution that has worked well for us is to get a no-pest strip and keep it under the sink.

As to washing out the Thetford after dumping, yes, we always try to wash it out at least once. We dump, then close the toilet back up and fill it up to the full line, and then flush, flush, flush, and then dump it out again. It always smells so much cleaner when we do this. If we have full hookups this is easy, but if people are waiting in line behind you at the dump station after you've been dry camping, well...sometimes we skip this step. We usually fill up the toilet with the hose from the shower if we aren't doing it while still hooked up.

It is kind of scary how insects can live in harsh environments. I've always heard that one of the creatures that would survive a nuclear holocaust would be the cockroach.

[commodor47]

Dave,

Check this link, scroll to Week of Dec 12: Soldier Fly Larvae:

http://www.ent.iastate.edu/clinic/node?from=7

Dick

[ShrimpBurrito]

Dick,

That looks like them, and the description on the website certainly fits the bill. Great ID!

From the website you referenced:

This week we got an interesting sample of brown maggots. Our fly expert, Dr Ken Holscher, was able to correctly identify them as maggots of the soldier fly. Soldier fly maggots occur in decaying organic matter. They are often found in manure or garbage. When found indoors they may be coming from garbage, a broken septic tank, or possibly a bee nest in the wall. Soldier flies are harmless, and the best control is to locate and eliminate the organic matter they are breeding in.

Picture:
http://www.ent.iastate.edu/clinic/node/52

Foul.

Fortunately (???), I was the only one who saw them.

Dave

[cali camping]

Dave,
Did you get this issue resolved? When you charge your tank for storage are you adding water + chemicals or just water?

[ShrimpBurrito]

Well, since I never saw any bugs when I took the toilet apart before the point I started storing the toilet charged, I "fixed" the problem by returning to the practice of storing the toilet empty. When I did find the bugs, I had charged the toilet for storage with Aqua-Kem, just as if I were about to take it camping.

But since the soldier fly maggots occur in "decaying organic matter", it likely will still be possible to get them. I am operating on the assumption that any waste still remaining in the toilet after dumping, by unfortunate virtue of the infamous filter cone, will dry out in the semi-arid climate of Southern California before the maggots have a chance to take up residence.

Dave

[nonichris]

I always feel as though I need to say something in defense of the little critters that annoy and disgust people, because they all are part of the ecosystem and have a part to play in it. Fly larvae serve to clean up organic debris and turn it back into soil nutrients, and they also are food for other organisms. They, like mosquitos, ticks, and other creatures that humans dislike are important members of the natural community. I just returned yesterday from Costa Rica, where I live in an open home at the edge of the rainforest. We have no garbage service, and only organic debris can be recycled, so we come to appreciate the army ants, the butterflies that feed on rotten bananas, and even the fly larvae, along with the vultures, and numerous other "cleaners". It may be unpleasant to have larvae in your toilet, but they are telling you that there is organic detritus there, and so providing a service. If I don't empty my compost bucket either here or in CR every few days the flies find it and lay their eggs. We left a cooked lobster carcass in the sink for only a couple of hours and large flies of a species we did not recognise found it and were buzzing around ready to lay eggs...they have a tremendous olfactory ability.

[wbmiller3]

I bet your butterflies are awesome.

Long time composter here.

[nonichris]

Yes, the butterflies that feed on decaying bananas are the most beautiful of all, the blue morphos, that at one time were the ones that set the world price for butterflies..also the big owl butterflies sometimes feed on the bananas. We have lots of butterfly flowers too to attract other species, but the morphos are the brilliant irridescent blue with the astounding flight pattern, that seems to leave a false visual after glow in the air as they pass by. Composters unite!!