Sunday, November 13, 2011

The Ants go marching 5000 by 5000


This morning as I as putting in my contacts the first thing I noticed upon clearer vision, was hundreds of ant  pouring in our window.  As I inspected them a little closer I noticed that they were impali, the blood drawing safari ants that move in rivers.  As proof that I have become somewhat used to all the unwanted critters I just thought to my self, “gross!”  Then went to get the Doom, our preferred hands off bug killer, and fumigated the area.  And our tooth brushes were just below the puffs of chemicals.  Oh well I thought... not something I wanted to deal with on Sunday morning.  
About 10 minutes later Pamela got up and noticed that there were ants coming in her window too.  So I figured that I better go outside and check on the situation.  I tucked my pajama pants into my gum boots and and headed around the house.  I should have know it was going to be bad when the dogs didn’t even follow me on my investigation.  When turned the corner, to my horror, there were at least 10 little rivers of ants moving up the side of the house into the bathroom window and above towards the roof, carrying little eggs... INTO OUR HOUSE!  My only weapon at the time was my can of doom which I began to spray furiously at the lines of ant.  Also further dousing our tooth brushes with doom.  This method was clearly not going to be effective for the masses of ants trying to enter our house.  And now I was mad.  
I came inside and mixed up some kerosene and water in a bucket.  Since all things living hate kerosene.  I was attempting to make a barrier around our house to deter the little menaces from further intrusion.  I plodded back to declare war.  As I started to douce them I realized that not only were they moving up the house by bathroom window but they were going into a crack in the wall by Pamela’s room.  They were now scattering all over the yard congregating in little masses to attack and devour other unsuspecting bugs... gross!  Jess and Pamela noticed that they were coming in the office window too.  I then saw the inch wide, half-inch deep river or ants running along the side of the house between the windows.  I quickly finished my bucket and went to mix up some more kerosene death.  I made a perimeter and kind of went crazy throwing it around... definitely not an activity I ever thought I would be doing... pouring kerosene on my house.  But it was working and the ants were starting to retreat.  I had to go out and do this another time before church and another after.  But our back yard is now a grave yard for 1000s of impali as well as Pamela’s room and the bathroom.  Pamela pointed out that this would be the perfect time to have a shop vac... only in our dreams.  And we probably should have worn masks to go back there due to the strong fumes.    But we held the troops off for a least another day!  Hoping Monday morning doesn’t hold the same fate :)

3 comments:

  1. This happened to Larissa and me last year with a different type of ant we have here that are not nearly as bad as impali, but still unwanted in our house. Larissa and I attacked with Doom, and then Michael came out to find out what all the commotion was about. He surveyed the situation and calmly said "This is not a job for Doom." and went to get the kerosene. Hope the impali have been defeated by the kerosene! Funny how we can have shared experiences living in different countries.

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  2. HA! that is great! I can totally see Michael saying that. The kerosene did work pretty well. And Josh painted the base of our house with some serious ant killer today... so we should be good for a while :)

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  3. Bless you :) --kerosene is definitely the way to go in cases like this. I have found Baygon to be a better spray than Doom for ants (when they are not in such large quantities). Some chemical in the Baygon lingers, so it not only kills ants on contact but keeps them away for awhile too. Also, a friend recommended Terro ant poison (from the good 'ole US ofA) and it has staved off the ants for us the best. Someone would have to bring this to you, but the Terro works well for us. We were overrun by ants for a very frustrating season and these were some remedies I found. But kerosene is definitely your best bet to fight them off in a pinch. Blessings to you and I hope you stay ant free!

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