If you follow the steps in this post, you won’t have maggots in your car, ever.
You’ll get to know how to get rid of maggots in your car, and what you must do to keep your car bug-free, forever.
If that’s something that you’re looking forward to, then read on.
Why There Are Maggots In Your Car?
Unless you know the why the how won’t work.
So, before we get into getting rid of maggots, let’s get into why there are maggots in your car.
Maggots are in your car for only one reason. Your car has organic garbage.
Organic waste like food crumbs, beverage droppings, and even poop that you must have stepped on cause maggots.
But how do maggots crawl into your car?
Maggots don’t crawl into your car. They’re the larvae from the flies’ eggs.
Yes, the waste inside your car attracts flies. These flies lay eggs inside your car.
The flies’ eggs hatch within a day or two, causing the maggots to feed on the trash that’s inside your car.
These maggots then form into pupae, a kind of cocoon, that they break through when they turn into adult flies.
What Do Maggots Look Like?
Maggots look like creamy white worms. They are less than half an inch long with no legs.
Maggots crawl with the help of their mouth that has two little hooks.
In your car, you’ll find them on your car’s footbed, seat, and even inside your car’s trunk compartment.
Maggots feed on rotting materials. That’s why it’s easy to see them on a rotting piece of flesh or stale food.
There can be numerous maggots inside your car.
Once the maggot infestation increases, you’ll find them crawling on the car’s seats and the car’s floor.
How To Get Rid Of Maggots In Car?
Fortunately, you don’t need a pest controller to kill maggots in your car.
You can do it yourself.
In this section, you’ll get to know how to get rid of maggots in your car, step-by-step.
Here they’re.
Vacuum Clean Your Car To Get Rid Of The Waste
To get rid of maggots, you need to remove what brings the maggots, which is garbage.
But before you start vacuum cleaning, you must take off the seat covers and any upholstery in your car.
Wash those covers. And wait till the end riddance process before you put them back.
If you’ve leather covers, then it’d best if you give them for dry cleaning.
Remove the foot carpet of your car as well. A lot of dirt escapes the foot carpet and go to the main car floor. So, if you vacuum with the foot carpet on then, you won’t be cleaning the car’s floor well.
You will find many maggots on the car’s foot carpet. But that’s fine.
Take off the foot carpet and keep it a few meters away from your car.
Now begin the vacuum cleaning.
Vacuum clean your car’s upholstery, floor, dashboard, and near the food paddles.
Also, vacuum cleans those hard-to-reach corners inside your car, like the gaps in the window frames and car seats.
Make sure that you vacuum slowly. Don’t forget to clean any corners or gaps inside your car.
Vacuuming will remove the garbage, the live maggots, and even any fly eggs hidden in between those gaps.
Don’t forget to vacuum your car’s trunk compartment.
Many people put in their groceries and other organic materials inside the car’s trunk.
So, it’s evident that the car’s trunk compartment has a lot of filth that attracts the flies to lay eggs.
Sprinkle Boric Acid Powder To Kill The Remaining Maggots Inside Your Car
Vacuuming will remove most of the maggots inside your car.
But the riddance process isn’t finished yet.
Sprinkle a generous amount of boric acid powder inside your car to kill the maggots.
Make sure you don’t miss the thin gaps in the car windows, the foot paddles, the car seat, and the gaps behind the car seat.
Close the car’s doors and leave it for 20-30 minutes. Let the boric acid settle in the car sufficiently to do its work.
In the meantime, vacuum clean the car’s floor carpet that you took off in the previous step.
As we said earlier, vacuum clean slowly.
Once you’re done with vacuuming, sprinkle the boric acid powder on the car floor carpet.
You’re now almost through. Let’s move on to the last step.
Vacuum Your Car, Again, To Remove Boric Acid Powder And The Dead Maggots
By this time, all the maggots are dead. Now it’s time to remove their carcass.
And to do that, vacuum clean your car again.
As usual, do it slowly, don’t rush. Make sure that you’re cleaning all the gaps and crevices inside the car.
Don’t forget to vacuum clean the back trunk compartment of your car.
Vacuum the car’s floor carpet, too, to remove the boric acid powder and any dead maggots.
Now, you can reassemble the car upholstery covers and the floor carpet inside your car.
That’s it. Your car is now free from maggots and many other bugs that must be hiding inside your car.
But do you want to up your game and make your car’s interior cleaner?
If yes, then steam clean your car’s interiors.
Steam clean breaks down any little garbage stains that are inside your car and removes them.
It makes your car’s interiors swanky clean and ensures there are no remaining stains of garbage inside your car.
How To Make Your Car Maggot, And Bug Resistant Forever?
You don’t want to get into the ordeal of removing bugs and maggots inside your car.
No one likes it.
But if you take a few precautions, then your car will be free from maggots and bugs.
Here’s how.
Don’t Eat And Drink Inside Your Car.
We all do it, and that’s the primary reason for organic waste in your car.
The food and liquid droppings create stains inside your car’s fabric and upholstery that attracts not only flies but also carpet beetles, spiders, and roaches.
It also makes your car stink, which in fact, also attracts flies.
So, if you eat and drink inside your car often, don’t do it.
Vacuum Or Steam Clean Your Car At Least Twice In A Month
Nothing works well against bugs inside the car other than vacuum or steam cleaning.
Cleaning your car at least twice a month removes any stains and waste inside your car, attracting bugs.
If you’ve coverings and fabric inside your car, especially leather, dry clean it often or use a car cleaner to clean them.
Car cleaners are bug repellents, plus they remove hard-to-remove stains from your car.
Stained leather attracts carpet beetles inside your car. The larvae of carpet beetles are big damagers of leather and other animal fabrics.
Always Use A Car Freshener Of Specific Fragrances To Repel The Bugs
Use a car fresher with the fragrance of lavender, peppermint, eucalyptus, cinnamon, or lemon.
Bugs hate these smells, and they do a great job in keeping all kinds of bugs away.
If you don’t want to use a car freshener, then you can sprinkle a few drops of essential oils of these smells in the corners of your car.
Quality essential oils have insecticidal properties that repel bugs.
Don’t Park Your Car In Dirty Places.
Avoid parking your cars, with the window shields down, in dirty places.
Bugs will get inside your car.
Also, keep your garage clean. A dirty garage is a perfect place for many bugs to hide and multiply, including roaches.
These bugs can easily sneak inside your car, lay eggs, and cause an infestation.
Conclusion
White worms in your car, also known as maggots, are the larval stage of flies.
The waste inside your car attracts the flies. These flies lay eggs, which after hatching, causes the maggots.
In this post, you got to know three simple steps to get rid of maggots inside your car.
Here are the steps –
- Vacuum clean your car.
- Sprinkle boric acid powder.
- Then vacuum clean again to remove the boric acid powder and the dead maggots.
You also got to know how to keep your car free from maggots forever.
But it’s not only maggots that can be inside your car.
Spiders and carpet beetles can also infest your car. You can check our posts here and here to know more on how to get rid of them.
Nang Chen is an Entomologist and Arachnologist who is associated with Vienna’s museum of natural history. He’s also a consultant with real estate groups, insecticide conglomerates and law enforcement groups as a forensic entomologist. Nang Chen holds an M.S. from South China University and he’s a regular contributor to our site.