I Have an Enemy

Yes, that's right. I have an enemy. I am in a battle that I seem to be losing no matter what I do. I've tried turning the other cheek, but no matter what, my enemy will not cease from invading my life.

Who or what is this enemy I speak of?




Ants. I have ants in my house. I have ants in my yard. They won't go away and I want to cry :( I had an ant problem last summer and I hoped beyond hope that I had gotten rid of them after all of my attempts. This is not so. Last year they had started coming in from behind a baseboard heater in my kitchen. After taking the advice from a friend, I sprinkled cinnamon around the heater (because natural and non-toxic is always the best route to go with if possible) which deterred them and for a couple of days I didn't see anymore ants. I thought I had solved the problem. Silly girl. Beside my kitchen is a bathroom/laundry room combo and as I walked in one day to do a load of laundry, I found those wretched little things, again from behind a baseboard heater. I put an ant bait thing nearby but it didn't help all that much. The summer went by and eventually the ants went away. Blessed relief. When the ants started coming in again this year, I can't say I was very surprised, but I had clung to the hope that maybe they had found a nicer area to invade, somewhere centrally located perhaps, with a big deck and a view of the ocean so they could entertain the queen. Apparently these ants aren't in the market for a new nest right now. I was preparing myself for the same situation as last year with them in the bathroom. Well, they've decided to switch things up a bit. This year they are visiting me via underneath my sliding glass patio door in my kitchen, and from behind a baseboard heater in my living room. ARGH!!!! I should tell you that I am generally I very living-creature sensitive person. Live and let live is what I usually say. If there is a spider, beetle or other creepy crawly in my house I will more often than not scoop them up onto a piece of paper or into a glass and put them back outside. The only time this doesn't apply is if it has wings, or if it really ticks me off. Ants really tick me off. I've spent the last 4 days squishing, diverting, blocking, spraying, watching, waiting, and pulling my hair out screaming  ever so calmly doing what I can to stop them from coming in. I even sprayed a "barrier" of Raid along the ground where the yard meets the house. Instead of keeping them away, they are crossing it and then dying in my kitchen. BUT STILL COMING IN. Lovely. Last night I decided to do a little research on ants to see if there was anything else I could do to stop this madness (because yes, I feel like I'm losing my mind) and read something that I had completely forgotten about. When you squish an ant, or even agrivate it, they release a pheromone that their nest mates smell and then come rushing to help. So after all the squishing I had been doing on my kitchen floor, I realized that more were probably coming in because they were coming to carry their fallen sisters (another thing I learned) off to the ant graveyard (and yet another thing I learned). This really seems like I can't win here. I've sprayed around the initial baseboard heater they were coming in from, only to discover a few here and there coming in under ANOTHER baseboard heater in my living room. I know the only way I'm going to get rid of them once and for all is to wipe out the nest and in turn the queen which I've been trying to do. I've come across two entrances to their nest in my yard and sprayed both with a substantial amount of spray (this should tell you I'm at my wits end if I'm spraying chemicals into my grass, something I don't condone. Chemicals are yucky.) and all they've done is created new entrances elsewhere. Tomorrow I have a pest control guy coming to have a look at the problem. My Mom set this up for me. I guess she could hear the desperation in my voice when I talked to her on the phone last night. God Bless her. I've seen so many ants this last week that I feel like they are crawling all over me. I just want my house and yard back, and in turn, my sanity. I read ant nests can be up to 20 feet deep, that ants can travel up to 700ft to find food, and the queen can lay hundreds of thousands of eggs.

Lord help me.