Inconvenient Household #3: Ants & other Pests
CONFESSION TIME: I screwed up. But first, the back story.
We’ve recently moved into a new home, one that has wonderful raised beds (outside!) for gardening, a living room the size of Rhode Island (because we live so large), a jacuzzi that looks to have last operated in the 1970s, and more spiders, ants, gnats, moths, roly-poly bugs and bees per meter than any home I’ve ever occupied. Honest to god, this house is an entomologist’s dream. Without exaggeration, we’ve seen at least two dozen black widows in the month we’ve been here.
Now understand that insects don’t bother me at all. In fact, I’m so at peace with the critters that I use a Bugzooka (LINK) to remove them to the great outdoors without doing them harm. Even the black widows are simply deposited over the neighbor’s fence (along with our cat droppings and food scraps).
Yet. . . yet. . . the ants are driving me crazy! I’m one of those guys who really appreciates a clean kitchen. I don’t like dishes in the sink, crumbs near the toaster, or fingerprints all over the chrome strip on the fridge handle. Call it my one and only anal obsession. Or don’t call it that as it isn’t really appropriate. So when I found that ants more or less consider our kitchen counter tops a natural extension of their digs, I knew I was in for another dose of “daily hypocrisy” (LINK) no matter what I did.
My first attempt at reclaiming the kitchen was to simply clean the hell out of the counters. Soap, water, bleach, more bleach. Not a perfectly environmentally responsible solution, considering the bleach, but fairly low impact. Worked for about nine minutes before the first of the scouts returned.
After this, I worked quite diligently to ensure that no scrap of food was left around. No dice. Mind you, all this time I’m wiping out hundreds of ants with a wet rag every day and feeling rather guilty about it in the process (blame Pixar and a brief conversion to Jainism (LINK) in the early 90s).
“Natural” remedies did little other than drain my pocketbook and dash my hopes. Finally, regretfully, full-of-misgivingsly, I purchased a can of RAID. Indeed. Can you believe it? Neither can I. I’ve read “Silent Spring” (LINK). I know how nasty and altogether wrong the stuff really is. And I did it anyway. FOR SHAME, MR. BRILLIANT!
Did it work? Nope. Within 24 hours, the ants were back at it. At what, I’ve no idea as I never found them getting any food, carrying any horde in their pincers. But I DID get to inhale poison, and I did get to violate a personal code of conduct. All in the name of frustration and convenience. And fear that of tiny critters who do me not a whit of harm. FOR SHAME!
Two weeks later, and they’ve left on their own. I’m sure we’ll meet again next year at the same time. I’ve pledged aloud, while standing in the corner near the sink where they used to congregate, a pledge to leave them alone when they return. I’ve apologized to the relatives of those who died in a toxic fog. I hope that this step backward will compel me to to finally understand that my pampered, sterile, altogether artificial life needs MORE of the natural world, not less.
FOR SHAME!
Song o’ the Day is something that I’m betting will be new to you. It’s the Insect Surfers’ “Insect Stomp”. Great early-90s surf band, the IS. Just hit play, darling. (you really should make a playlist out of my Songs ‘o the Day - the selections I make are amazing.)
Technorati Tags: bugzooka, hypocrisy, insects, jainism, rachel carson, raid, silent spring
Tags: Inconveniences
Wow, we feel the same way. Borax traps did the trick for us in less than a week.
Maybe it’s the dreaded speciesism I’ve heard so much of, but the suffering of one or two ant colonies seems to pale in comparison to the suffering of animals in factory farming.
Chris -
Borax traps worked for you, eh? I think perhaps my ants can read or have experience with similar. Factory farming is a real nightmare - for so many reasons. Even on the most basic level, that of healthy nutrition, the factory farms in the U.S. fail our schoolchildren who are forced to eat the most contaminated meats in their lunch programs (even in 2007!). Here’s for hoping the push toward sustainable food production only increases.
The only way I can get rid of ants in my place is to let the spiders do their things, however, here in Michigan we don’t have black widows.
Tod,
I’m in Ohio, on one of those fun trips via airplane that I’m trying to eschew.
Re ants, they are quite at home in my home, and hundreds of them gathered for a Memorial Day picnic under the bathmat hanging on the tub. What a shocker when I removed the mat to take a bath!
I use an orange (as in “citrus,” not Agent Orange) spray (not the flurocarbon type) that is supposed to be harmless to people, pets, etc. It’s available at Ace Hardware.
I have to be vigilant because it doesn’t permanently eradicate them. I have scouts looking for them while I’m away. But it’s better than the toxic stuff.
We also find that the ants are seasonal. Cleaning with vinegar seems to help. I think it wipes out the tracks they leave behind for their friends to follow.