Ants: The Backstory
Last night when I mentioned my little ant problem, I thought I was going to be able to link to last year's drama. Turns out, that post is on the other (super-secret and super-scary) blog. So, let me just tell you about last year's ant drama.
We get invaded every year. It's been going on for as long as we have lived in Pittsburgh (six years?). So, there was no shock when I started spotting a couple around the joint. As usual, there were a few in the kitchen trying to steal the Bulldog food (they don't touch the Iams, just the extra-expensive Bully food--I don't want to know why). I practiced a few little Earth/pet/baby friendly removal methods on their butts, and away they went.
Upstairs, however, was a different story. Those ants were big. Those ants were malicious. Those ants LAUGHED at my non-chemical attempts to shoo them away. I couldn't figure out where they were coming from, I couldn't figure out what they were looking for, and I couldn't figure out why the hell they were in our house in the first place. All I knew was that they were big (as in one could not fit its whole self on a key on your keyboard--seriously), they were ugly, and I wanted them out.
After I exhausted every non-chemical remedy known to man, I decided to go for something a little bit more powerful. I spent hours scouring shelves at Home Depot, trying to find a product that claimed to be kind-ish to kids and pets. I finally found one. It was some sort of powder that claimed to kill on contact and that you just had to sort of squirt into crevices wherever you saw ants.
Somewhere along the line, I learned that when you have ants in your house, they are probably spending their free time wherever you have pipes. They can't survive without water, so if you strike at their water source, you'll get them. That meant if I wanted to kick some serious ant booty upstairs, I needed to squirt my powder gunk in the wall between Alexis' room and the bathroom. So I unscrewed a electrical outlet cover and squirted away, chuckling to myself as I imagined all those little creepy crawlies withering away in misery.
Not so much.
The "alleged" ant killer was more like ant REPELLENT. And HELLO! there were not just a couple of ants living in the wall, but LITERALLY THOUSANDS. How do I know this? Because they came pouring out of the wall. POURING.
Thousands of carpenter ants.
Walking around my hallway.
Covered in alleged ant killing white powder.
At first I figured it was just going to take a minute to take affect. So I stood around, dodging ants and thanking all sorts of deities that no animals or a certain troublemaker had decided to come upstairs.
And I waited.
And I waited.
OK, not really. I did absolutely no waiting, I just spun around in circles spraying the alleged ant killing powder on every single ant in my vicinity. Until I ran out of powder. Then I figured I would vacuum up the thousands of ants that were marching all over our upstairs, even if they were still alive. Two hours later, our see-thru canister vacuum was full of creepy crawlies and looked like it was alive.
As I am occasionally really stupid and very naive, I still figured the alleged ant killing powder would kick in.
Not so much.
Getting rid of the canister full of still living ants covered in alleged ant killing powder? Tons of fun, let me tell you. I've never had such a good time never, ever, ever.
At that point I went a wee bit crazy (OK, crazier). I ran to the store and bought the Serious S%*t, guaranteed (by an exterminator, no less) to kill the suckers. I'll tell you, Sevin dust did work, but I still get eeked out when I think about all the other stuff it can kill.
No matter. This year I ain't screwing around. The ants will go marching two by two all the way to ant hell. Because seriously? If I find them crawling around on the floor next to this one? I will go all Chuck Norris on their asses.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Reader Comments (38)
Those carpenter ants really creep me out . . . and they can royally eff up your house!
We had them one spring . . . randomly we came down for breakfast and there were THOUSANDS of them right by the door. It was a horror show.
I don't fool around with homeopathic shiz . . . I go straight for the death spray. Will it cause cancer? Yes? SWEET! Give me TWO BOTTLES!
Only the SH!T really works!
Ant have freaked me out in the past too....
Great story!
I was in the midst of PPD when & we'd literally just moved in when we were invaded. I started sobbing so much the Orkin guy got the super duper kick their asses back to Sibera stuff. A crying, boob leaking mom will do that, I guess.
And, dude...you said joint. Sorry. My glass of Mommy's Time Out's kicked in & I'm a little funny..
I will go Chuck Norris....
LMAO at that. But I have to totally agree with you. I would too!
I also had ants upstairs...in my bathroom (ew!)...not sure what they were looking for...maybe former owner had snacks in the vanity. But I'm telling you, that Bayer stuff WORKS! Only one application per year (although I suspect you may need two since you seem to have the crazy ants). Gavin's only got a couple of weird tics, and only one cat drools for no reason.
Okay, I was a tad bit freaked out by the mother-trucking worms in the fish tank. But those ants have me totally skeeved. I would not have taken to living in the house any longer very calmly had those things come pouring out of my walls. Not that ants are scary, but anything in huge numbers is a bit freaky.
That's it. I am no longer reading your posts before going to bed. Orange Dora shorts and thousands of ants pouring out of the walls = nightmares for me.
P.S. Your comment on my post made me all warm and fuzzy. Thanks!
"The ants will go marching two by two all the way to ant hell." <--THAT had me laughing out loud!
EEEW! I hate ants and would have been stomping all over their butts to kill them. I shouldn't have read this before bed either. NO I'm going t have nightmares...did you ever see that MacGyver where all the ants are crawling all over him? NIghtmares for years...years I tell you!
This is a good reminder to load up on ant killer as the snow is melting in MN. We get them every year too...they march in a diagonal line across our kitchen. Maybe the dog will actually do some good with this purpose...are yours helpful? :>
I somehow felt it was so wrong of me to be laughing so hard as to make hyena-type noises while reading about the ant situation. Then I read the other comments and moved straight into the snort-laugh. Weird tics and only one cat slobbers....BWAHAHAHAHA! And going Chuck Norris on their fat little ant asses? MORE BWAHA'ing! I have a feeling that what you have are the Acrobat Ants, and yours have morphed into SYNCHRONIZED Acrobat Ants. I'll tell ya what...a little glowing in the dark is a small price to pay to get rid of the wiley little ba$tard$. And I, too, giggle like a 14-year-old at the mention of PUSSY willows. Rock on, Mr. Husband! The only thing I am NOT laughing hysterically about here is the thought of those nasty-assed ants anywhere near that beautiful child. Go, Chuck...
Oh! We've been there too. You tell it funny, but I know how awful it is to go through.
http://blogthismom.blogspot.com/2006/12/ants-go-marching-one-by-one-hurrah.html" REL="nofollow">Here is our ant story.
Yikes!
I swear I'm not laughing at you, but I have these crazy images of you ninja style attacking ants all while singing "the ants go marching two by two hurrah... hurrah" whilst Alex sits calmly by watching her crazy mom ;-)
Hope this year is lots better!!!
OK, I am seriously freaked out by those ants. What a lovely scarring experience!
I hate to tell you this, but my parents had the same exact problem. Carpenter ants. And they came back EVERY. SINGLE. YEAR. Until my parents decided to finally re-do their upstairs bathroom. After tearing down the wall and taking out the toilet, what did they find? The nest. And the ants have been gone since then.
So, you really need to pinpoint where the nest is and rip that nest out. NOTHING worked in terms of ant killer. They had wet wood and a big old nest. And that is probably what you have. So sorry. Those ants freaked me out every time I visited. And staying overnight and finding ants on my stuff was the worst.
Oh so sorry. We could send up a few billion fire ants that will eat those ants for lunch (they seriously do) but then you would have fire ants. Bad plan.
UGH! We had ant problems last year, too. The worst was when they infested our car on our camping trip. We got in the car and turned on the a/c and looked down and saw that we were COVERED in ants -- they had blown out of the a/c vent. It's not quite as bad as having a bee in the car, but trying to kill thousands of ants as you drive down the road is no easy task!
Kill the S.O.B.'s, I say.
Ugh. Carpenter ants freak me out!! Luckily (if having ants can be considered lucky), we get the small-ish ones. But, they still freak me out. Grounds guys were here yesterday to spray around the outside and so far (they claim they're getting an early start with the spraying this year because it's been warmer than usual the last two weeks).
The visual you described of the ants coming out of the wall and then in the canister? Was enough to give me the heebie jeebies.
Ugh! I feel for you. While our and issue was solved accidentally. And our mouse issue was solved by the Hound being a small prey hunter. We've had an on and off problem with cockroaches. We bought the house with a terrible infestation. Bombed it. Fumigated it. Ripped otu most of the walls and all the fixtures and took those (cockroach crawling) to the dump. And had 2 years of Orkin.
We still see one ever once in a blue moon.
My solution? Teach they hound that they're fun to catch and eat. So she hunts them. It doesn't get rid of them completely (as it did the mice) but it's done a better job than any poisonous method did.
OMG - horrible, just horrible. I'm itchy and jumpy and wiggling just reading about it.
*shudder* i HATE ants. hate them hate them hate them.
probably dates back to the year that the invading forces actually marched into, through, over and around my baby's crib -- WHILE HE WAS SLEEPING IN IT.
and wait ... you have a super-secret and super-scary blog?????
OK, the image of your cannister full of angry ants made me actually shudder.
And exactly why are they called "carpenter ants?" Do they like to build stuff, or something? Because if so, I think I have a carpenter ant invasion in our garage and they built a really terrible shelving unit.
Ick. That gives me the willies picturing all of those ants pouring out of the walls. Blah!!! I would completely freak out!
Why not just harness them up and put their butts to work? Maybe they can carry very small items from poitn A to point B.
You need to learn to EMBRACE YOUR INNER CARPENTER ANT!!
Hallie :)
I'm all itchy and shit now. Bastard little ants.
Yuck! Carpenter ants are like the king of all ants...they are bog which gives you a better perspective of all their icky body parts.
Good luck and hoping you took care of that problem.
Oh my gosh!! That is just crazy! I hope the ants aren't as bad as they were last time. Chuck Norris on their ass, that is funny!
Chuck Norris --- heeeyaaa!
Go get 'em girl!!!!
I think I would have just up and died when they all came pouring out of the walls.
You go girl! Any time I've had ants it's been because of water. I've fixed plumbing leaks and they've gone away. Maybe a call to the plumber is in order?
We had ants bad one year in Aurora's room. It took us days to get rid of them. Ewww...ants are gross!
Eww! I feel all icky like ants are crawling on me......yuk! Good for you kicking some ant booty! I'm giggling so much at the ants marching two by two to ant hell.
Ugh Ugh Ugh! Thanks to this post, I'll be feeling like I'm covered in ants as soon as I turn off the light! Nuc 'em!
AHHHH! My hair is totally standing on end reading about them pouring out of the wall. I'd go chuck norris on them too...eww!
Ewww!!! Wow, I never saw that coming...out of the wall...who'd a thunk that?
At our old house in SC, we had them every year too. We've gotten up in the middle of the night and found them crawling like soldiers strung from our room to our son's & down the hall. Ours were fire ants though. I forget what we sprayed, but we vacuumed too. Such a pain at 2 in the morning...and gross. Hope you don't see them again.
Ants pouring out of the wall? All I can say is ew, ew, EWWWW!!
Yeah, I have stories of those suckers in my old house--destoyed LOTS of things that the termites left for them to chew-the termites that didn't get eaten by the rabid bat who took residence with us.
Yeah I don't do the bug dance anymore-new house, new everything--and at the first sign of anything moving--I call Orkin--money well spent--I don't care how much!
Only you can take such a nasty ordeal and make me laugh so hard I'm tearing up! I read it to hubby and he reminded me that when the boys were little we started using http://www.ghorganics.com/page11.html" REL="nofollow">talcum powder because ants won't walk across it. Apparently it is like glass to them and will cut up their legs if they try. Anyway - I still use it, especially in the kitchen.
Hopefully by now you have your problem under control!