Destroy VM task leaves garbage on datastore when creating Virtual Disk

Below is the code used for adding a virtualdisk to a virtual machine:

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disk_spec = vim.vm.device.VirtualDeviceSpec()
disk_spec.fileOperation = "create"
disk_spec.operation = vim.vm.device.VirtualDeviceSpec.Operation.add
disk_spec.device = vim.vm.device.VirtualDisk()
disk_spec.device.backing = vim.vm.device.VirtualDisk.FlatVer2BackingInfo()
disk_spec.device.backing.thinProvisioned = True
disk_spec.device.backing.diskMode = 'persistent'
disk_spec.device.unitNumber = unit_number
my_disk.port = unit_number
disk_spec.device.capacityInKB = int(disk.size) * 1024 * 1024
disk_spec.device.controllerKey = controller.key
dev_changes.append(disk_spec)
spec.deviceChange = dev_changes
configure_disk_task = vm.ReconfigVM_Task(spec=spec)
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After the destroy VM task is completed, still files are lingering around on the data store, and therefore the datastore cannot delete the folders, which it keeps piling up:

[root@esx2:/vmfs/volumes/58aca8b7-0bf10598-21ff-0cc47a80f82a/kalipso_3] ls -ltrah
total 1032
-rw------- 1 root root 0 Apr 14 10:02 kalipso_3.vmdk
-rw------- 1 root root 0 Apr 14 10:02 kalipso_2.vmdk
-rw------- 1 root root 0 Apr 14 10:02 kalipso_1.vmdk
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 700 Apr 14 10:03 .
drwxr-xr-t 1 root root 3.7K Apr 14 14:12 ..

Start with the reported vm.ReconfigVM_Task call and the subsequent destroy VM task, using the provided virtual-disk configuration and datastore listing to reproduce the behavior. Done means destroying the VM no longer leaves the zero-byte VMDK files behind and the datastore folder can be deleted.