There’s a lot of 'workers' in my kitchen but it’s not good
- col-teri-stein
- July 29, 2023
- 636
Normally, I live life on a pretty even keel. I usually take a live and let live approach, but that was before a bunch of tiny “worker” ants in my neighborhood recently formed their own collective to attack my kitchen. Now I’m game for some insect murder.
Last time we had an ant problem, the ants were much easier to dispatch than they are now. We set out some ant killer bait, my husband Joe sprayed around the outside of the house and we waited. A few days later, they were gone.
Not this year. The ants have gained more intel on what it is that is killing them. Of course, it’s printed right on the bait in big letters that say “Ant Killer.” That could be why they are steering clear of the poison.
When I saw the ants appear this year, I remembered some leftover bait from the last time and immediately set out a couple on the counter. I resisted the urge to flush them all down the sink with sink sprayer. The faster they grab the bait and take it back to the colony, the sooner I’ll be rid of them.
After a few days, they seemed to disappear. Yay, I’m rid of them. That was easy.
The next day they were back with a vengeance, spreading their little pheromones all over my kitchen. Pheromones are one way they communicate with each other and leave a trail for the others to know where to go.
I was not happy.
Then I began to more closely observe the ant comings and goings. They seemed most active in the morning and sometimes the evening. During the day, especially toward the afternoon when the sun was hitting that side of the house, they seemed to stop coming in. In the evening, if it was cooler, they didn’t come in either. It was interesting but was not helpful in eliminating them.
A couple years ago, Joe had ordered me a set of stove gap protectors. They are opaque strips of silicon that keep crumbs and stuff from falling between the countertop and the stove. They work really well.
Now the silicon strips were working really well for the ants. They used them as ant bridges that allowed them to access the stove and another countertop. I gave an evil laugh as I removed one of the strips, confining them to only one countertop.
It took me a couple days to pick up another kind of ant bait. I immediately sat it on the counter, not bothering to remove the other ant baits. And the same thing happened. A few days later, the ants seemed to disappear — success.
But no, the next morning there they are again, all congregated in a triangle-shaped spot where one of us probably dropped something sweet into the sink and didn’t get it rinsed down well enough.
I’m getting a little sick of them. Aren’t humans the superior species? Aren’t we at the top of the food chain? Shouldn’t we be able to get rid of some stupid ants?
I’d really like it better if we could just reason with them, like “quit coming in my house or I’m going to kill you and all your family, friends and fellow worker ants.” Maybe they’d like it if I would put some food and water out for them, but sadly, there’s no interspecies ant/human communication.
Without doing much research, I went to the big box store, which Joe said is the best place to find ant poison. It might be, but I didn’t find much available that visit. It appears there are lots of people having the same trouble I am with ants.
I was feeling better about my situation though. In the same aisle, there were supplies to get rid of mice, rats, snakes, roaches, yellow jackets, moths, flies, mosquitoes, gnats, spiders, bed bugs and fleas. At least I didn’t have any of those — yet.
So now I have three different kinds of poisonous ant bait on the kitchen counter. And I haven’t seen one ant interested in the new bait, which says, by the way, it doesn’t kill Argentine ants and several other varieties. Surely, I don’t have Argentine ants. They’d have to be in Argentina.
A little research and, well, Argentina was just their home base. Now they are an invasive species found all over the world, and they look just like the ants that are crawling around my kitchen. You can get a more definitive handle on this by crushing one of the ants and seeing if it smells musty — no thanks.
I’m still on the lookout for more ant poison, but for those keeping score, it’s ants 3, humans 0.