Steffan vs the Ants
Mar. 13th, 2006 06:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
saint_monkeyAn upstairs neighbor moved in about three months ago. A man and his father. He left a note on our downstairs neighbor's door talking about the community garden space, and how they should have a party because he has lots of "stuff."
At first I thought he was talking about marijuana, but after he moved in and began unpacking, I began to realize that he really was referring to the small plot of community garden space at the back of our apartment. (It's so small and was so overgrown that our landlord neglected to show it to us, so I was pretty much unaware of it. Our new neighbor shares access with our downstairs neighbors. They get the patio and garden, Mystery, me, and my other downstairs neighbor, Roger of the Barbie Shrine, get balconies and views.)
So the upstairs guy unpacked lots and lots of garden things. Stone fauns, chinese terra cotta footsoldiers, ceramic elephants, the works. These went, I assume, into the garden. I haven't gone back there to check, because if you try, you will see our downstairs neighbor eating cereal through his patio door. The upstairs guy has so many garden nicknacks that they spill into the hallway.
So soon after the upstairs guy moves in with all his plaster and stone things from some other garden somewhere, I begin to see ants in my apartment. Ants lay pheremone trails, and you can bet that if you see one, he is just the first in the train. An ant outrider.
So now they are essentially everywhere. Not like a blanket of ants, but random excursionary forces, recon raids into the trash can for eggshell. (These ants don't like sugar, they seem to be after pure protein. Eggs and vegetable peels from the trash.) The other day, they were in our car, which is parked in the garage, attached to the garden.
I bear them no ill will. They don't eat much, and what they do eat is garbage, but I can't get over the fact that an insect invasion is somehow unsanitary, even though I've kept our kitchen cleaner than ever before in this new apartment. So I take small steps, sealing all the food away in plastic bags, even sealing things that they might like that are in the garbage up in bags. I put barkeeper's friend at their access points, figuring that the oxalic acid would harm their little exoskeletons, or at least mask the pheremone trails (This works, but they just find new points of entry along the perimiter.) And of course, I used to kill ants when I saw them. I stopped this, because it had absolutely no effect on their numbers, gave me no satisfaction, and the ants come back later to collect the dead ants, carry them off and (I can only assume,) eat them. (An army travels on its stomach, I guess.)
Other than that, I've done nothing, and I wonder what I can do, other than resign myself to cohabitation with ants. I see them and I remember the Six Feet Under episode where they introduced Nate's ill-fated wife Lisa, a new age Seattleite, who is first seen sitting on her floor trying to negotiate with the ants invading her apartment. "It is time for you to go," she says, as if a summit could accomplish anything. They are like the North Koreans these ants. They may come to any summit you host, but you know that come nightfall, they'll be five hundred strong in the trash can.
At first I thought he was talking about marijuana, but after he moved in and began unpacking, I began to realize that he really was referring to the small plot of community garden space at the back of our apartment. (It's so small and was so overgrown that our landlord neglected to show it to us, so I was pretty much unaware of it. Our new neighbor shares access with our downstairs neighbors. They get the patio and garden, Mystery, me, and my other downstairs neighbor, Roger of the Barbie Shrine, get balconies and views.)
So the upstairs guy unpacked lots and lots of garden things. Stone fauns, chinese terra cotta footsoldiers, ceramic elephants, the works. These went, I assume, into the garden. I haven't gone back there to check, because if you try, you will see our downstairs neighbor eating cereal through his patio door. The upstairs guy has so many garden nicknacks that they spill into the hallway.
So soon after the upstairs guy moves in with all his plaster and stone things from some other garden somewhere, I begin to see ants in my apartment. Ants lay pheremone trails, and you can bet that if you see one, he is just the first in the train. An ant outrider.
So now they are essentially everywhere. Not like a blanket of ants, but random excursionary forces, recon raids into the trash can for eggshell. (These ants don't like sugar, they seem to be after pure protein. Eggs and vegetable peels from the trash.) The other day, they were in our car, which is parked in the garage, attached to the garden.
I bear them no ill will. They don't eat much, and what they do eat is garbage, but I can't get over the fact that an insect invasion is somehow unsanitary, even though I've kept our kitchen cleaner than ever before in this new apartment. So I take small steps, sealing all the food away in plastic bags, even sealing things that they might like that are in the garbage up in bags. I put barkeeper's friend at their access points, figuring that the oxalic acid would harm their little exoskeletons, or at least mask the pheremone trails (This works, but they just find new points of entry along the perimiter.) And of course, I used to kill ants when I saw them. I stopped this, because it had absolutely no effect on their numbers, gave me no satisfaction, and the ants come back later to collect the dead ants, carry them off and (I can only assume,) eat them. (An army travels on its stomach, I guess.)
Other than that, I've done nothing, and I wonder what I can do, other than resign myself to cohabitation with ants. I see them and I remember the Six Feet Under episode where they introduced Nate's ill-fated wife Lisa, a new age Seattleite, who is first seen sitting on her floor trying to negotiate with the ants invading her apartment. "It is time for you to go," she says, as if a summit could accomplish anything. They are like the North Koreans these ants. They may come to any summit you host, but you know that come nightfall, they'll be five hundred strong in the trash can.
