Rotten Stench

So, earlier in the week, we had a customer come up to the register to complain that there were open rotting cans of cat food in our cat food aisle -often nicknamed Cat Can Alley because there's cans of cat food on both sides of the aisle- that had flies buzzing around it and such.
Which...I thought was weird, like why would we allow rotting food to just sit on the shelf?

Well...it's probably because we don't like working Cat Can Alley. It's honestly a nightmare to face and stock that section of the store. *shakes head* It's difficult to ever make it look neat.
But still...rotting food....

So I went to check it out, wondering if the customer was exaggerating.
They weren't.
There were a ton of little black flies flying about one four foot section of the cans. Crawling all over the place.
And then an awful stench. Gag inducing. That I smelt before I caught sight of two cans.
One broken open, the other punctured, sitting on the shelf.

I have no idea why those cans were open...had they been dropped? Had someone opened them and left them? Was it an accident or was it on purpose? Who knows.
I just know that it reeked.
So I quickly pulled the open cans from the shelf, and returned to that section to check the other cans in that area to make sure none of the others were broken open before spraying the empty shelf with a cleaning agent, and replacing the cans.

But then a couple of days later....I happened to walk down that aisle again....
And I could still smell the stench of rotting food.
There were still flies buzzing around the area.

Which...I checked that section to make sure there were no more open food cans! Why were the cat cans being sooo smelly again? Was it still a left over smell or was there something open?

I did a quick cursory glance, trying to find the source.
But the stench this time was a bit more powerful, the flies a bit more pervasive. So I ended up retreating to tell a manager about the issue.

And today, they finally figured out where the stench was coming from.

It was another couple of open cans of cat food.
Stuffed back out of sight.
But this time they were apparently crawling with maggots/larvae. :S EEEEWWWWWW!!!!

Thankfully, it seems like getting rid of those disgusting cans and again cleaning the area finally got rid of the smell....

But I do have to wonder....are we going to find a couple more cans of open cat food in a couple more days? Is this a new prank going on where people come into the store to open and leave cans of food to rot? Or was it just stocking/manufacturing error?
If it happens again...I'm going to say it's possibly human meddlement....because we checked those cans.

-Sarnic Dirchi