Ants

Do you know the song

The ants go marching one by one hurrah hurrah....?

Well, I don't know all of it either because I didn't teach little kids, but I do know that first verse. Unfortunately, I sing that one verse constantly because of an awful ant invasion that I've had since I moved in.

At first those little boogers came from the dining room and slowly but surely made their way to the kitchen. So Andy sprayed. What happened after that? Those ants just changed to a new starting point to slowly make their way into the kitchen. So Andy sprayed. They kept moving to a new starting point over and over again. So Andy sprayed over and over again. I even called the property manager, and he sent out an exterminator that used a super strong, stinky chemical that I remember from my childhood. That super strong, stinky chemical didn't help those ants.

Every time I saw ants I pulled out my All Natural Antibacterial Kitchen cleaner (which smells really good) and sprayed those ants. The cleaner killed those ants quite quickly. But you know what? For every 20 I killed, here came 20 more. Over and over. For the past week or so I couldn't figure out where those ants were coming. I guess the spraying was working in one way.

Yesterday I became quite irritated about not knowing the starting point, so I conducted an experiment. I pulled out a beautiful white dish and filled it with several tablespoons of syrup. Guess what?!?!?! The ants came in droves to that plate. Then they got stuck in the syrup. Oh I was so happy to see all of those ants stuck. This is the conversation I imagined they had with each other:

"Go back. You'll get stuck. Go back. Go back. We can't move. Go back."

Before you think I'm crazy...during my studies of how to get rid of ants, I did read that ants emit a noise to the other ants when danger is near. The other ants did start running when their compatriots were sprayed with the antibacterial cleaner. I then had to move quickly to get those ants that were running away sprayed.

Anyways back to my story....I followed that ant trail from the pretty white plate with all the dead ants stuck in the syrup. Do you know where it led? Behind the dishwasher. I pulled out the dishwasher and saw hundreds of ants marching to the syrup. Andy arrived about 15 minutes after this discovery and sprayed that ant trail. The best news of all is that I haven't seen a single ant all day. Whoo Hoo!

Now I have to wait and see how long this being free from ants lasts. I'm really hoping that we are finished with the ants, but if not, then Andy will keep spraying, I'll keep spraying the antibacterial cleaner, I'll keep smooshing them, and I'll continue the constant lookout of crumbs on the floor and counter tops.

Facts I've Learned about My Ants:

1. They love meat. If ever a morsel was dropped, they swarmed it. I have 3 young kids. Morsels were dropped all the time.
2. They didn't like overly processed foods like Trix cereal.
3. They loved my gluten free muffins.
4. They loved the Princess and Winnie the Pooh cupcakes.
5. I could follow a trail fairly easily. Except when they disappeared behind the dishwasher.
6. They really can carry a lot of weight.
7. They carried each other. Twice I saw one ant carrying another ant. I don't know if the ant being carried was dead or had some other problem.