This is a new weekly blog post that I'm calling Apartment Hell Life. I've mentioned a few times some of the crazy things that go on in and around my apartment complex in the past 20 years that we've lived here and people keep telling me I should write a book. But instead of a book, I've decided to share the crazy things that have happened in and around my apartment complex in the last 20 years here in a weekly blog post.
ANTS
When we first moved into this apartment 20 years ago, we noticed an ant problem right away but only in the bathroom. I used Raid, the bait traps, the ant gel and even DE (diatomaceous earth). Nothing worked. About 10 years ago I wrote this...,
"Every summer I find a few ants in my bathroom. They drive me insane. In the past two years Ken and I have used at least two tubes of caulk, caulking up the seams, cracks, crevices and holes in the bathroom. He took off the baseboards, sealed them up and put the baseboards back on. Last year I even nagged him into sealing up the bathroom vent in the ceiling because I kept finding headless ant torso's in the sink. I figured they were having some sort of ant wars in the vent and the losers got thrown down into the humans sink to show us what would happen to us if we messed with them. Hey, it could happen.
These aren't the harmless little brown ants that can't bite. No, these suckers are about 1/2 an inch long with red heads, black bodies and mandible type pincers on the front of their faces that they use to bite into your flesh and latch on if they happen to get on you. I know this first hand because I had one crawl *super damn fast* up my leg and down my shirt before I could stop it and latch on to my chest. My daughter was here *how embarrassing* and saw me freak the hell out, throw off my shirt while screaming like a mad woman and dash into the bathroom. All I could hear in the living room was my daughter's laughter as I tried to pry the devils minion off my boob. He wouldn't let go so I had to rip his body from his head which was still attached to my flesh. It's not funny, these demon spawn have pincers like a crabs claw and it hurts! The bathroom is sealed, I even took the light plates off the wall and sprinkled some DE into them. DE kills bugs. Die ants die!
So why am I telling you this? Because I saw an ant in the bathroom not 20 minutes ago. Ants, why must you taunt me so."
We caulked up all around the tub enclosure even though it looked like it as sealed but they are small so even small cracks were big enough for them to get in through. But after we went caulk crazy in the bathroom, we stopped seeing them in there for the most part. Every summer we still see the occasional ant but it's nothing like it used to be and for that I am very glad. Ants freaks me but these big biting ants that I now know are Carpenter ants, really freak me out. Go ahead and Google Carpenter ant and tell me it doesn't look like something that just sprouted from the loins of a demon. Go ahead, I'll wait.
I can pick up a spider, beetle or moth and take them back outside with no problem. But let an ant get inside my apartment and let me see it and all bets are off. I go from mild, happy Mary to crazy, half insane warrior woman hell bent on eradicating the ants from the face of the Earth. But at least I don't see them too often these days.
How do you feel about ants?
So that's it for this week's Apartment Hell Life! Be sure to come back next week for more.
Ants are quite complicated...
ReplyDeleteAnd annoying.
Deletehaha remind me to stay away from you when ants are around. They are so annoying though. We had them in our 2nd last apt. They just go everywhere.
ReplyDeleteI don't see them anymore.
DeleteHumans must be ruthless with bugs. There is eternal war between humanity and buggery.
ReplyDeleteIf these are really carpenter ants, they could be making the building structurally unsafe. They make their nests in the walls -- they don't eat wood like termites do, but they tunnel through it and cause nearly as much damage. Killing a few individuals when they come out into an apartment won't get rid of them -- colony populations are in the thousands at least. At worse the management might need to gas-bag the whole building.
That ability of the biting jaws to stay clenched after decapitation can last for days. Primitive cultures in areas with army ants actually make use of this to keep wounds closed, like stitches. Place an ant on the wound, let it bite the edges of the wound together, twist the body off, repeat, until there's a row of ant heads holding the wound closed.
This was from a few years ago. The owners had the bug people coming out every month for a while and I haven't seen hardly any of these ants around here.
DeleteWe don't like ants here either, they are pretty darn evil.
ReplyDeleteThey sure are.
DeleteOmg, I hate ants! We always have a problem in the summer, the big ones are in every room in the house. I'm convinced they come in through the heating/AC vents. The tiny ones are always in the kitchen. One year, we finally figured out they were coming in through the electrical outlet by the sink. Very hard to get rid of!
ReplyDeleteThey are so hard to get rid of.
DeleteLiving out in the country we have all kinds of little critters that try and make a home inside our house. It's like a never ending battle. lol...
ReplyDeleteOh I bet you have all kinds of critters.
DeleteOh I hate ants, not as much as flies, but they rank up there. Ha, I would have caulked every dang thing too!
ReplyDeletelol I don't mind most other bugs but ants come by the hundreds.
DeleteSome ants go away easy, and others refuse to die.
ReplyDeleteThat's the truth.
DeleteYeah... I googled them and wished I didn't. I'd lose my mind fighting the good fight against those if they were invading my bathroom.
ReplyDeleteLOL I did warn you. It took me a while to figure out what they were.
DeleteEvery spring we have a issue with the little ones. We use to have a problem with the bigger guys but not for the last few years. They drive me crazy too!
ReplyDeleteTh little ones are bad enough especially the biting red ones.
DeleteSealing cracks, is the way to go, at least at my place. In summer, however, they (the usual ants) still make some appearance in the south part where there's lots of sun. I just spill some water over them, and that's it.
ReplyDeleteWater works for a while. We sealed this place up tight.
DeleteBooo ants! We have these tiny red ones that bit hard, but then the regular ones can bite too and they are so dang annoying. We had them at our last place cos they got in from the neighbors garage. I bombed the heck out of them
ReplyDeleteOh I hate those little biting ones.
DeleteAnts are so pesky. We have a lot of them in the yard here. My husband treats the mounds as he sees them. Sometimes they get in the house but - so far! - it hasn't been a huge issue inside.
ReplyDeleteOh that's good.
DeleteOkay I'm not laughing at you about the mean little bastard you had to separate from its head!!
ReplyDeleteI hate ants. HATE them. We get the little sugar ants all over the counter a few times a year. We put out ant bait, they show up in droves for a few days, then they leave for while.
I bleach the countertops after I wipe them down. That helps at least temporarily.
I also put tea tree oil in a spray bottle and spray along all the edges of counters, baseboards etc.
I don't know what they're after, we keep things wiped up. But man, one little drip of food or sugar that we miss during summer and those little assholes are back.
I can laugh about it now.
DeleteI hate ants! They are so hard to get rid of and I do not want them for roommates! Every year they seem to come into our house and put out traps that seem to work. I don't want to spray chemicals because of my 3 dogs.
ReplyDeleteI totally get that. That's why I used caulking and caulked up all the holes.
DeleteAnts are such a pain in the ass. "ant wars in the vent" oh my gosh that cracked me up. I feel you though, I've had ant problems when we moved into our house and it's WAR. Terminating with extreme prejudice lol.
ReplyDeleteThe headless bodies that were being thrown down the vent were unsettling. lol
DeleteWe had an ant invasion in the caravan last winter. Only tiny ants compared to your carpenters, thank goodness, but it took ages to get rid of them. I found daubing clove oil everywhere did the trick. The ants couldn't stand its strong scent. That said, I didn't like it much either, but needs must!
ReplyDeleteThat's understandable.
DeleteOh ants suck. I deal with them every summer here in the kitchen. They are determined. Ours are just little black ones but dang it they pinch, too.
ReplyDeleteThey are determined to be a pain in the butt.
DeleteWow. Demon ants from hell. Sucks. I have been dealing with those teeny tiny sugar ants at my house lately. I hate them.
ReplyDeleteThey really are. Hell's minions.
DeleteWe had them coming in through the fireplace one of the years!! Drove us nuts. I forgot what we bought but it actually worked, it was some gel type of thing from Home Depot that the ants get in it and take it back to their mound and it winds up killing them all. Think it took maybe 3 days before we didn't see them ever again :)
ReplyDeleteI bought ant gel but it dried up and didn't work. Caulking has been the only thing that I tried that actually worked.
Delete