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ONE ANT, TWO ANTS, THREE ANTS, TEN MILLION ANTS

By on • ( 37 )

ONE ANT, TWO ANTS, THREE ANTS, MORE …

Yesterday, I saw an ant. Just one ant. He climbed onto my computer screen. Yuck.

I said  to Garry”I guess it really IS spring. There’s an ant on my computer.”

Mental marker. Call D&T Pest Control. They fixed us last year. They will fix us this year. Decent prices and if there’s another problem, they come back and do it again, free.

D & T Pest and Termite Control, Inc.  
5 Stars (from everyone, no less)
21 Google reviews
Pest control service in Bellingham, Massachusetts
7 Judy Lane, Bellingham, MA 02019
Hours: Open 24 hours
Phone: (508) 966-4470

This morning I went into the kitchen and there were a million ants. Everywhere. In every drawer and cabinet. On the floor. Not in any of the food because every single food item in this house is in a sealed container. Been here before. Between the mice and the ants, I’m a serious sealer-upper of all food stuffs. I wash every item as soon as it gets used.

Where did they come from? Yesterday, ONE ant. Today — the world is covered in big black (no wings, so not termites) ants. Carpenter ants, probably. They are the big black ones, but I also saw a good number of little sugar ants. Where there’s one, the others can’t be far behind.

Garry and I ripped the kitchen apart. Finally threw away ALL those old Dunkin’ Donut cups and containers from who knows when that that gathered under the sink. Washed, sprayed, washed, sprayed. Hauled trash.

Then washed, vacuumed, sprayed, washed and sprayed more.

And then called D&T and said I had a serious ant emergency and how could so many ants show up when there was just ONE yesterday? I must have had that desperate sound in my voice. I had been invaded.

“Who knows?” she said.

I think they came up from a hill in the backyard and are coming in under the French doors and the kitchen door because they are definitely centered in the kitchen. I found a bunch in the dining room and we haven’t even used that room for months.

Although we have mostly cleared them out for the moment, I don’t doubt they will be back in three heartbeats.

And, it’s pouring rain. They want us and the dogs OUT of the house for at least four hours. On a normal day, no problem. Dogs go into yard, we take cameras and take pictures of the dam, but we were …

BETRAYED!

In this weather, I can’t in any conscience put the dogs outside. So we are going to have to set up a date for the first day it isn’t raining, hopefully tomorrow.

It has been beautiful for the past two days. Why is it cold and raining today? Why us? Why are the heavens falling on us when we need dry?

Meanwhile, the nice lady from UMass Memorial called . Just to find out how I’m doing. They’ve been doing that lately. It was a bad day for that call. I was not in a happy mood. I have been spraying and cleaning and spraying and tossing trash for hours and I am NOT feeling polite. Or even civil. So she got the sharper side of my tongue. Not that the hospital didn’t deserve it, but this was the wrong day to try to have a normal conversation with me. There were ANTS EVERYWHERE.

I hate ants.

Ants. I hate the ants. They have followed us from Charles River Park in Boston to Beacon Hill. From Beacon Hill, they came to join us in Roxbury. And then, they showed up here. Worse than ever.

I hate bugs. I really hate bugs. No one hates bugs MORE than I do and in recent years, I have been plagued by these nasty things. I actually took some kind of sick pleasure is squashing these little bastards and hearing their thorax go crunch. It is unworthy of me.

I apologize.

The ants are just being ants. But I am just being human.

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37 replies

  1. Kiki
    03/31/2018 • 16:35

    Well, this is definitely serious. First, I thought I ‘only’ had to tell you that there is nothing that needs to be done, nothing that can be done… Now I’m no longer sure. We once lived in a tiny house where every springtime, punctually as a Swiss clock, ants were ‘traversing’ our kitchen. Really just like a band or a road, they crossed our kitchen, they assembled in a well ordered fashion somewhere hidden to us and for 3-4 days that black band of tiny workers marched across everything in their way – then they were gone until spring next year. No spraying, no sweeping them up, no washing everything had the tiniest impact. They came, were here and went. I then, during those years, learned to accept them. They didn’t do any harm, you just had to let them do their thing. But looking at your ‘story’ I think I’d freak out totally…. You have my commiseration, dear Marilyn.
    Happy Easter, all the same.

    Like

    • Marilyn Armstrong
      03/31/2018 • 19:56

      We’ve got them under a semblance of control until the pest control people get here on Thursday. I’m trying to keep them out of our food! The dogs don’t care. They eat dirt anyway and what are a few ants with all the other dirt?

      Liked by 1 person

      • Kiki
        04/03/2018 • 04:44

        I know; dogs can seemingly eat and digest anything – they eat also cats’ food, humans’ food, so a few ants are just a ‘supplement’…

        Like

  2. choosingmyperspective
    03/31/2018 • 11:11

    I think I told you this before (during your awful caterpillar/moth invasion) but early on while living in my old house, I was awakened in the middle of the night by…never-mind, I won’t describe the sensation…anyway, a “swarm” of Carpenter ants, falling in literal PILES onto my bed.

    That put the above described night mares (in my comment to Garry) to shame.

    AARD Pest control has taken care of me ever since…quarterly, but worth it. They are now family friends and I credit them for saving my house!!

    I did have quite a spiritual crisis over the whole thing though. As you know (but apparently you tolerate me anyway) I raise Giant Spiny Australian Leaf bugs. I was having a hard time reconciling my un-contemplated violence toward one insect (the carpenter ants) but loving my Leaf Bugs!! Stimulated a whole discussion with a wise Hindu friend about everything from Racial Profiling to past lives, but who assured me it was OK to protect myself and my home from Carpenter Ants….

    Like

  3. CRAPBOX
    03/31/2018 • 01:34

    Had a great reading with a small creature…

    Visit, Follow and encourage on
    https://crapboxwords.wordpress.com/category/awakened-poems-within-me/

    Like

  4. Judy @ NewEnglandGardenAndThread
    03/30/2018 • 21:02

    I hate bugs, and I hate ants. We keep everything sealed too, but sometimes when there is a wet spring we can’t always keep them all out. I haven’t ever had to call someone, but I certainly can understand. You just want them gone, like now, or sooner. And, it always makes me feel like I need to sterilize the entire place. Irrational, I know. 🙂

    Like

    • Marilyn Armstrong
      03/30/2018 • 21:10

      I didn’t used to call anyone, but sometimes, they are worse than other times. Last year, all of them were concentrated in the front of the house, but since we replaced the door, they seem to have built a big set of nests along the base of the deck. AND we have mice. And we have wasps and hornets.

      I just gave up. It was actually cheaper to get them to do the whole thing and they will keep coming back for a years — and drop the price next year, as long as you keep using them. They house got pretty damp from the snow, too, so there are a lot of areas that ants are finding very homey.

      Garry and I tore the kitchen apart this morning, scrubbing and scraping and spraying everything. Washing every dish, every utensil and the pots and underneath everything. But the ants aren’t living inside. They are outside, coming inside. It’s too much for us. We are EXHAUSTED. It’s good we’re going to my son’s place for Easter. Between the incessant barking of the dogs and the ant invasion … well … somewhere else sounds good.

      Everyone has given up doing it themselves — not just us. All the snow melting against our aging houses has really made the ants and termites (thank god we don’t HAVE termites!) very happy.

      Liked by 1 person

  5. Rebel Girl
    03/30/2018 • 20:28

    I share you dislike of ants. There are certain years they seem to come in masses. We use Windex, spray the crap out of them, they die instantly. I know that is evil, but we don’t want damage to our old home!

    Like

    • Marilyn Armstrong
      03/30/2018 • 21:12

      We’ve had ant invasions before, but this was really bad. Even with tearing the place apart and washing and scrubbing everything, they aren’t IN the house. They are outside and coming in under the doors. They win.

      Liked by 1 person

      • Rebel Girl
        03/30/2018 • 21:23

        They seem to come in through this one area by our window. We seal it, they find their way in. If we keep spraying them, they don’t get too far from there, if we don’t they always find their way to our honey jar or sugar. We finally got a glass jar for the sugar.

        Like

        • Marilyn Armstrong
          03/30/2018 • 22:10

          You must have the small brown sugar ants. We have the big black carpenter ants. But I seal EVERYTHING. I have such a paranoia about bugs — and mice. I just threw in the towel an signed up with a service that will kill off the mice, the ants, a slew of other bugs AND deal with our hornets and wasps of which we have many. We live in the woods. The bugs LOVE us.

          Liked by 1 person

  6. Covert Novelist
    03/30/2018 • 19:42

    I know bugs are good, but I hate bugs! creepy crawler beware! I’ll throw my shoe at you!
    Marilyn, what is your email account? It’s not coming up in my email when I look for it. I’d like to send you a letter. 🙂

    Like

    • Marilyn Armstrong
      03/30/2018 • 20:05

      You can’t throw your shoe at the ants. They run FAST.

      Like

      • Covert Novelist
        03/30/2018 • 20:07

        lmao. I once had a spider show up (the exterminator told me the type and he was scared said it was from a foreign country and deadly…all I remember is it was the size of a dinner plate and pink) never did find it, but it came up behind the counter and I threw every shoe I had at it and it kept on going and disappeared. Never to be seen from again. Not by me anyway. He had to exterminate the entire building (apartment with 85 suits) and we had to vacate the premises for 8 hours. Hence the shoe remark, lol

        Like

        • Marilyn Armstrong
          03/30/2018 • 20:14

          We have to wait for a dry day and need to be gone — WITH the dogs — for a good four hours. What we are going to do with the three dogs and the car for four hours, I have NO idea. It’s going to be a fun day.

          If I saw that spider, I’d move out and live in the car myself.

          Like

          • Covert Novelist
            03/30/2018 • 20:18

            If I had a choice, I would have! lol I was afraid to sleep for several nights, checking every corner believe me. Once the exterminator was done, we had to air out the place but couldn’t vaccuume for a week so my throat got really sore. I wouldn’t want to repeat that venture!

            Like

          • Covert Novelist
            03/30/2018 • 20:20

            You mentioned an interest in editing Blindsided. Are you still interested? or has the fancy passed? Either way is good, not a problem. I’ve worked on it and taken out about 5000 words and areas that had been duplicated. If so, I need to know how to send it to you so you can read it? My son would do this as I haven’t sent stuff forever, the zipping and unzipping crap hangs me up. I’ve become computer illiterate! sigh

            Like

  7. Rich Paschall
    03/30/2018 • 19:10

    One year I had some ants in the kitchen. I decided they were coming in under the back door, so I sprayed Raid heavily across the threshold on the outside and then a few other strategic spots. It stopped them in their tracks. If I had seen them again I would have called Orkin.

    Like

  9. Martha Kennedy
    03/30/2018 • 17:47

    I hate ants, too. The smell bad and they’re nasty and I cannot subscribe to their world view.

    Like

  10. Garry Armstrong
    03/30/2018 • 17:27

    AAARRGGHHHH!

    Like

  11. angloswiss
    03/30/2018 • 17:22

    Oh no are the only words I can say. We have our ants, but sort of under control, although I keep an eye open and the usually stay in the garden. I deposit ant traps here and there but you4 ants seem to be too clever. I can imagine the stress you have.

    Like

    • Marilyn Armstrong
      03/30/2018 • 17:43

      We just signed up for the anti-bug and mouse people. I think they will be an annual event. They were here for us last year and I suspect we will always need them. The ants come every spring, no matter where we have lived. They are essentially harmless, but ugly and I don’t like them. They climb on everything. Ick. Yuck. Ew.

      Liked by 1 person

  12. omniclassic
    03/30/2018 • 16:26

    WOW! and there for a moment, I thought you’d whipped out your trusty 60mm Macro and got a great eye-to-eye, SciFi monster, shot. I know that’s what I would have done before the mass eradication effort? Cheers!

    Liked by 1 person

  13. swo8
    03/30/2018 • 15:39

    We have the same ants here, Marilyn. I think the rain motivates them to come in. They don’t go for the ant traps and they don’t seem to go for the liquid poison. I just use the old foot technique and I have let a few spiders do their work. It’s very frustrating.
    Leslie

    Like

    • Marilyn Armstrong
      03/30/2018 • 17:47

      I know. They are an annual event. We have to tear down an old shed and an old wooden shower that attracts them, too. The house is getting old, but we can’t fix everything. We CAN fix the front of the house and sign up for the yearly bug and mouse cleansing. Other things will have to wait.

      Liked by 1 person