Defending against a tiny, crawling army
- Laura Moore: Housebroken
- April 2, 2024
- 548
While wiping down the front door of our refrigerator last week, I had a bit of a shock — the spots scurried away from the cleaning rag. They weren’t spots; they were tiny ants, so tiny you couldn’t tell they were alive until they moved.
I have no idea how those tiny, little creatures got inside our place, but there they were. A few ant-killing sprays seemed to rid our house of those teeny invaders, but not for long. The next morning I found a few of those spots scurrying across our stove top.
We looked everywhere but could find no point of entry anywhere in our kitchen. This was a very upsetting problem. Ants, especially such tiny ones, make my skin crawl. With the help of a neighbor, we managed to move the refrigerator out of its spot. There was nothing there except for lots of dust and a few spots that didn’t try to escape the cleaning rag.
It made no sense and hardly seemed possible, but those creatures seem to have gotten inside our house through an electrical outlet, which I found, no pun intended, shocking. How many electrical outlets does our place have? Our house was under attack by an army of such tiny creatures that they could bypass being electrocuted.
I have since been assured ants cannot come through electrical outlets. There had to be another entrance for the invaders. But where? My frustration grew, and despite a concentrated search all over the kitchen, we found nothing.
An ant-killing spray was applied all over the kitchen, in every cabinet, behind every appliance, around the window and the door leading outside. Every dish and glass in those cabinets was washed. Let’s just say it was an extremely intensive cleaning effort, and so far it has worked. But I still swat every small spot I see, just in case.