Dirty and Smelly Wheelie Bins

We had the family over for an outdoor lunch on one of the hot days. The children kept opening the bins to put their rubbish in. Every time a swarm of flies flew out and the smell was awful. I was quite embarrassed. We had to wait until bin collection day before we could do anything about it. We scrubbed the bins clean and moved them away from the house and out of sight. I don't want to look at bins when I'm sitting on the patio. It is a problem. We have the organic waste bin, in which old food goes into, which only gets emptied every two weeks.

We have been plagued with flies, big black ones (horseflies?) and greenbottles (is that their name, not sure, like a bluebottle but green!) and I’ve had maggots. Yuk, makes me feel ill!

Because it’s an unnecessary expense unless youre disabled or so old you can’t do it OldMeg
Anybody able bodied can surely clean a bin with warm water, disinfectant a good slosh around and swill down the outside drain five minutes job but honestly if you bag everything and tie tightly the bin shouldn’t get dirty and smelly
I also don’t like all the extra chemicals that are used in a lot of cleaning businesses work

We've never had maggots, but then our food waste is recycled separately and goes in bags into a firmly closed bin. We don't have a lot of food waste anyway, but in the case of anything like fly-attracting scraps of meat or fish, I usually keep it in the freezer until the night before the bin men come. Especially during hot weather!

Our general waste bin is emptied every 2 weeks. It's not the stuff one can put in green waste that causes difficulty, it is things like chicken trimmings, fish left overs etc. I wrap everything like that as well as I can. If flies appear in the vicinity of the bin - fly killer and Jeyes bin powder. That and the occasional big bleachy brush and hose out, every so often keeps it OK.

thuberon I nearly did the same as your DH lol. I couldn't make out why the recycling bin smelt so terrible, I always wash out everything that goes in mine and had never had any problem before. I then realised that it was not ours but the filthy neighbours. She must just chuck everything in there dirty, it was high! Soon got my own back.
It is so easy to rinse out any container or wrap anything smelly.
I have walked past some disgusting bins on my way to work, always feel sorry for the binmen.

I didn't even know there was such a thing as a bin cleaning service. I clean my own with hose pipe, broom and disinfectant.

I live on a hill with a steep driveway so we have plastic bags that are kept in the shed until time to be collected.

I use compostable liners for my food waste bins, no maggots so far. I also sprinkle a powder called Bin Buddy into the bins; it is supposed to deter flies and kill off any maggots.

Completely off piste I know but as I was sitting here reading posts on GN a huge dragon fly has just flown past my ear and is attempting to batter itself to death on my front window. It’s also mskimg very aggressive buzzing noises like an angry bee.

Now my young dog is up on the sill too chasing it. Better do something PDQ ???

Oh please god tell me where I can buy or compose my own Jesus fluid, laughed like a fool for several minutes over these two slip ups! Brilliant

steady on with the use of the hosepipe.

Yes for the first time ever last week. It has taught us to empty it every day in this weather!

Our food bin locks when the handle is up so nothing can get in, I clean out with disenfectant each week and everything that goes into the general waste I’d already bagged so the bin hardly gets dirty, I just hose it out now and then as it’s generally clean anyway. I’ve not had maggots since the days before recycling when everything went in together in the dustbin.

I had this problem for the first time in my life a couple of weeks ago. I am now keeping general waste outside and wash recycling. I found flys even in in the lidded bin in the yard. I have no idea how they get in and I desinfect every week. We have so many flies and mosquitoes in this area we moved to last year. Is this possibility due to a lot of stagnant water nearby?

I had them a couple of years ago to my shame. Since then I take extra care, wiping the inside of the bin and twice wrapping any food waste in newspaper before putting into a bin bag.
From time to time I spray the inside of the bin with lavender air freshener just to be sure as I've read that they don't like the smell.

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We are obliged to enclose our organic waste in compostable bags (supplied by the council). This is removed three times a week, very early morning and door-to-door, which is just as well because the bags start to disintegrate rapidly. Organic waste in plastic bags would NOT be accepted here and we would also be fined.
This is Central Italy and it is always really hot in summer so this method is good and I have never seen a fly, let alone a maggot!
Before, we had big bins for general use and there were rats and sick stray cats around. No longer.

Isn't it time for a post from a survival expert like Bear Grills, telling us how to make a nutritious repast from the maggots in our bins? Yummy.

Some fishermen use maggots as bait.
Someone I knew, a keen fisherman, was looking for some maggots and asked a local butcher, thinking there would be some in the waste bins at the back of the shop.. I think it was somewhere in the Lake District.
The butcher was highly offended and refused.

Always wrap but every few weeks DH takes the hose, broom and Jeyes - especially in the recent hot spell.

We have two cats and when they do a poo in there litter tray it stinks I am not sure if anyone else knows how smelly cat poo is but believe me it reeks!, god knows what they eat mind you I should as I feed them but it certainly does not smell like that in the packets. Our wheelie bin does not smell that grate especially in this hot weather.
Like many of you I did have a wet cleaning man but the whole street, where he poured the dirty water, became a bit of a mess and it was a regular weekly, well fortnightly, expense. I see some of you have had this experience.
How strong are the liners that some of you say you use, I see Coolgran65 uses one each time, I did
this but the ones I bought from supermarkets and even from the big online shops were very flimsy even them saying on the sleeve heavy duty! (they are certainly not!)
I tried to find out what their thickness was but none of them actually tell you. I know they are very thin and I finished up putting two bags at a time in. The bins I have are a 240L black wheelie bin for general waste, a grey wheelie bin for garden waste, another for recycling plastics, cardboard and a red plastic box for paper. Like a lot of you I previously used the plastic bags that supermarkets gave away but now they’re not free anymore so I have been on the look out for alternative solution.
Late this afternoon after all day searching I came across a site called wheelie klips and I could see on there site that they have several products one was called Klip Bags which is a wheelie bin liner and they actually tell you how thick they are and the size as they look big enough! Another one was called Klip n Fresh which looks like it will answer all my prayers hallelujah! it holds the liner in place and holds a spray bottle with a scent inside the wheelie bin. I have ordered them both and I will let you all know how it goes, fingers crossed it works.