Except in this case there is definitely no hurrah, as since last Wednesday the ants have been marching not only two by two, but also into my apartment via the balcony. It started innocently enough, I got up last Wednesday morning, went into the kitchen to make my breakfast and out of the corner of my eye, noticed a little black dot crawling on the white floor. Now as our apartment is surrounded by gardens and trees, creepy crawlies are not that unusual inside, especially as I like to leave the windows open while I'm at work, so I thought nothing of it, squished it with some kitchen roll and carried on drinking my tea. But then as I wandered over to sit on the sofa and check Twitter, I suddenly realized that there wasn't just one little ant roaming around the kitchen, but dozens of them roaming around the living room, hallway and balcony too.
I had a 25 second freak out whilst standing still in the middle of the room, and then put down my tea, picked up a broom and started to kick some serious ant ass. 45 minutes later, all visible ants were dead and gone having been sucked into the hoover, but as you may know from past experience, those little suckers are nothing if not wily and I knew it wouldn't be long before they came back in droves. So off to the supermarket I went, to get ant sprays, gels and anything else that looked like it would keep them out of my living room. Of course, because of having a cat I couldn't get the really effective, toxic stuff with the little ant skulls and crossbones on the bottle, but I did manage to find some 100% natural sprays, which would just leave the cat feeling a little bit queasy if he managed to get into it, rather than say killing him instantly, as some of the more powerful sprays threatened.
Once I got home again, I killed off any strays who had come back to hang out whilst I was gone, then started a regime of cleaning, spraying and more spraying both inside and out. I also googled 'ant invasion' (I'm sure there is some 70s schlocky horror film by the same name, I remember watching it on late night TV once) and added lemon slices and Cinnamon powder to my arsenal, as the internet swears that ants hate both things with a passion.
Since then, I've been renewing my lemon slices around the strategic areas, brushing Cinnamon powder into the cracks in the walls and spraying the hell out of anything that moves on the balcony. I also spent Sunday afternoon in shorts, wellies and rubber gloves, cleaning all the random crap out from under the wooden balcony slats in the hope of finding and destroying the ant nest. It was about 30°c this weekend and by the time I finished I was sweaty, messy and dirty but I think I got rid of all the accumulated earth, leaves and general mulch so hopefully the ants will consider moving house and taking up residence in someone else's apartment soon. I don't know about you, but I very much preferred these particular formicidae when they were voiced by Woody Allen and looking for love rather than running around inside my apartment.
Fingers crossed they'll get the hint soon and hit the road, because I don't know if my lemon tree can provide enough lemons to keep chasing them out all summer long!
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