Bye-bye ants, you’re not welcome in my shower
We are at war with ants. Every February they find it necessary to invade our home. I have nothing against the ant population, as long as they remain outside.
Their favorite gathering place is in the master bathroom. Before we can shower, we must wash them down the drain or else we would have unwelcome companions overseeing our morning ablutions. As Bing Crosby (and Frank Sinatra) sang in “High Hopes,” those ants have high apple pie in the sky hopes! And wicked determination. Remember that rubber tree plant?
Our grandson, Anthony, finds them fascinating, but then 7-year-old boys tend to find many bugs fascinating. We checked the internet to learn more about ants. According to pestworldforkids.org:
There are more than 12,000 species of ants all over the world.
An ant can lift 20 times its own body weight. If a second-grader was as strong as an ant, they would be able to pick up a car.
Some queen ants can live for many years and have millions of babies.
Ants don’t have ears. They “hear” by feeling vibrations in the ground through their feet.
When ants fight, it is usually to the death.
When foraging, ants leave a pheromone trail so they know where they’ve been.
Queen ants have wings, which they shed when they start a new nest.
Ants don’t have lungs. Oxygen enters through tiny holes all over the body and carbon dioxide leaves through the same holes.
When the queen of the colony dies, the colony can only survive a few months. Queens are rarely replaced and the workers are not able to reproduce.
Although ants are frustrating when they get into your home or when you’re having a picnic, ants do help the environment. They are social insects, which means they live in large colonies or groups. Depending on the species, ant colonies can consist of millions of ants.
Ants aerate the soil, allowing water and oxygen to get to plant roots.
They scavenge dead organisms and are food sources for lizards and other animals. As beneficial insects, ants eat pests that are harmful to crops and orchards.
And while all this information is good to know, it still won’t stop the rave parties the ants like to throw in our shower.
Each February morning, we usually find a crowd of them in one spot dancing like nobody’s business. Occasionally they invite a local spider or some other insect over, just to be friendly neighbors I assume.
We have contacted our pest control service and they have sprayed outside and inserted some ant traps inside, but the ant soirees continue.
We have read up on ant control and tried various things, but the nightlife
Senior Living goes on with annoying regularity. We expect that soon they will be installing strobe lights and hiring a DJ. I guess the plus side to that would be that we would have some good music to shower to.
Our latest attempt to rid the shower of our unwanted guests involves a nontoxic spray that emits a nauseating odor.
My husband sprayed the flooring with it and I had to open windows. It was that or lose my lunch inhaling the stuff. Our golden retriever found it quite tasty, and we had to shoo him away from the toxic stuff.
As we age, some of us have issues with our eyesight, and it is important to get yearly checkups with our eye doctor. We could be missing the teeny pests. When our son was 12, his friend told us how he hated to have dinner at his grandmother’s house. When we asked him why that was, he said there were so many ants all over her kitchen and they were even in the food she cooked. He didn’t like to have to pick ants out of his mac and cheese before he could eat it. Can’t say I blame him.
There are products with chocolate covered ants, etc. I have seen them in stores. I suppose if we could stomach them the revenge would be oh so sweet. Jackie Grant is retired from the travel/tourism field, volunteers with Meals on Wheels, reviews books for the Daily Press and writes freelance articles. Contact her at grantjackie21@gmail.com.