My sister-in-law was visiting last week and discovered our dirty little secret. Yes, dear friends, we have ants. Lots of them. I daresay there are millions of them (okay, okay, give or take a few).
At first there were a few on the kitchen counter and I said, "well, it's okay so long as there are no more." There were more. Then I said, "it's okay, so long as they don't get into the cupboard." As they say, you can catch more ants with honey... "Well, it's okay so long as they stay out of the garbage can." They like the rubbery pork a lot more than we did. "Well, it's okay so long as they don't move into other parts of the house." I've now lost all shame of showering in front of the ants who have invaded the bathroom. "Well, at least they're not in the carpet."
That's when it happened. My sister-in-law said, "Um, your carpet is moving." Sure enough, when one looked down, a sea of tiny little black ants were following the Ho Chi Minh Trail through the labyrinth of rug yarns in the living room.
Why am I so tolerant of the little guys? Well, we've laid out traps, we've sprayed, we've even drawn a chalk line (supposedly they will not walk on chalk, but I'll tell you what... they crossed the line!). I keep saying "well" because the only alternative is to have the whole house fumigated. That means packing up everything in the house and moving away for a few days, all for a bunch of stinky ants who don't bite.
Well, it's okay so long as they don't get into my closet.
A few of our unwelcomed ants
We could never find how they were getting in (I think it was behind the cabinets
ReplyDeletein an unreachable spot). We seemed to conquer them for a while when we went out
of town and left all of the ant bait bottles open (the carnage was a disgusting
sight when we got home, but there were no more ants for the rest of the year).
But if/when they return this year, we'll try talc :). Thanks for the
recommendation.