Wednesday 25 April 2012

We Still Don't Know What It Was

I've had a small ant problem in my apartment.

Small because (knock on wood) there haven't been too many of them, and small because they're little ants.  (People tell me they're called "sugar ants", which is probably some sort of karmic irony for my sugar love/addiction.)

The resident manager and I have been trying to deal with them for a couple of weeks now.  I'm weirdly not happy with the "poison them with trick bait and kill the entire colony" thing, but my great plan of killing them one by one hadn't really gotten us anywhere except continually creeping me out and making me feel guilty.

Then something odd started happening, and neither of us have or had any idea what it was.

There started to be a trail of... debris, under where the ants were coming out from.  (They seem to come out of cracks in my window ledge above a radiator.)

I'd clean it up and half an hour later would have to clean up again.

It was weird.

I googled, but couldn't find anything to explain it so I emailed the resident manager to tell him I was giving in to his poison idea.

"They're having an ant rave," I emailed.  "It's like Coachella or something, and they're making a mess."

"Look out for tiny little water bottles," he emailed back. "That's a sure sign of an ant rave.  And I'll come seal off the cracks tomorrow."

My world is so much happier when people share my happy little world view.  What fun is life if you can't giggle your way through it.

6 comments:

Dominic said...

You should take this as an excuse to get a pet aardvark

Just a Girl said...

My house in Georgia had a lady bug infestation. And before you start on about how cute ladybugs are, I assure you they looses their cuteness very quickly when they are in your house in MASS. The main problem with lady bugs though? That they are about as easy to kill as cockroaches and procreate about 10 times faster. Sigh. I feel for you :( But at least you can have a good laugh about it!

Just a Girl said...

Oh, also, since you are good humored about it, you should totally mess with them. Put objects in their trail and ramps to go up and down. Like a little obstacle course. Since they are leaving you a track it should be pretty easy. You could even play circus music in the background and leave some popcorn kernels out for them. ;)

Victoria said...

If anteaters were dog-like, I might consider one Dominic ;)

Oh Candy, an infestation of anything is GROSS! Eww, sorry! And I LOVE the idea of a circus obstacle course type thing! WHEEEEE!

Just Sayin... said...

Use Borax laundry detergant.
It's about $5 a box at any grocery store.

Pour it generously on any trail or where you think they are coming in. They are attracted to it, however, they track it back with them to the nest, and it kills them.

:)

Victoria said...

I've heard that too JS! (But so far these ants are weird and aren't taking the bait we've put out for them... hmmmm.......)