Lord of the Flies

Most Florida rentals keep the garbage cans either in the driveway (next to the garage door) or just around the front corner of the garage. At the Solanas Resort, the garbage cans are in the driveway. The garbage gets picked up every Thursday morning, so, there is never more than a week's worth of garbage.

On Sunday we noticed a horrible smell in front of the house. At first I thought something had died in the garden. A swarm of flies told us the real story: it was one of the two garbage cans. This is Florida, the cans are sitting in the sun during high 90 degree days, who knows what chemical experiments might be occurring in those cans.

Something had to be done! We decided we could clean the cans by dumping bleach in them and then we would spray to kill the flies. We picked up the bleach and fly spray on Monday night.

I decided on Tuesday morning to take care of this problem. How bad could it be to clean a smelly garbage can? I decided to do the worse can first. With the bleach in my hand, I lifted the cover. I found the can was nearly empty except it was wall to wall a swarm of flies. I have never seen so many flies in my entire life! The black cloud of flies was so thick that I couldn't see the contents of the can.

And then suddenly the most putrid and disgusting smell hit me. The smell burned into my nose to a degree that would cause me to continue smelling it the rest of the day. The smell hit my head and my stomach and I could feel breakfast rising up. I dropped the can cover and backed away gagging. The rotting smell brought me the heaving in the bushes, but I swore not to puke.

With burning tears running down my face, I decided to attack the flies first. I approached the can and lifted the lid just enough to flood the can with a long spray of fly killer. I dropped the lid and sprayed the outside of the can and was amazed at how the flies dropped dead at first contact.

With the flies addressed, I approached the first can, lifted the lid, and dumped the bottle of bleach in - hitting the sides of the can and all around. As I did so, I noticed the bottom of the trash can has a thick back layer of dead flies. What had attracted so many flies and such a horrible smell? A cup of half eaten soft ice cream at the bottom of the can.

With the first trash can addressed, the second was easy to deal with: spray the flies and dump in the chlorine.

I have never encountered anything as disgusting as that garbage can. Garbage and Florida heat are not a good combination.