Now, to be fair (and that’s pretty difficult when I’m discussing ants), I don’t want to hate ants. If they’re outside, preferably someplace far away from my house, then I’m fine with them. I’m not one to kick over anthills, or stomp on them out of malicious glee. No, as will all insects, if they aren’t bothering me or likely to bother me, I leave them alone. They perform valuable functions, or so I hear. Except mosquitoes; those things definitely don’t do anything good for anyone else, like, say, helping along the decomposition process, as ants do. No, mosquitoes are totally worthless parasites, and I’d be happy to see them all die. But that’s about it. I’m not even particularly antagonistic towards slugs and snails, but that might be because I’m not much of a gardener. I can mow a lawn, and that’s about it. And I suspect that I even do that in a way that would make professional gardeners shake their heads sadly. But other bugs? I leave ‘em be. Some, like ladybugs, I’ll actually do my best to avoid killing, even if they do wander inside my house.
So if ants are outside, minding their own business, not blazing a trail towards my house, well, that’s just fine with me. I’ll do nothing to disrupt their lives. But the little fuckers don’t seem to appreciate this. Oh, no. First chance they get, they invade my house. My wife and I once had to do a late-night cleaning of our pantry, and then a frantic Caulk-the-Holes race around the kitchen to stem a very sudden and very large invasion. A little while after that, they appeared in our master bathroom. The master bathroom on the second floor of the house. They just appeared, and started wandering around. Maybe the queen had a sudden urge for shampoo, because we don’t store all that much food in our bathroom, and they weren’t heading towards areas likely to have standing water. No, they were just doing it to piss me off. More hole-caulking ensued, along with liberal use of a lovely ant-killing spray made out of concentrated orange peel. Which was non-toxic, but made the place reek of oranges. The ants were very obliging and died off, though.
That’s when I took the battle outside. I tried ant stakes, which seemed to work on one group, but not another. Then came dollops of sweetened poison, which the ants were supposed to carry back to their queen, but instead seemed to gorge on it and die right there at the spot. Lots of them did this. When I found out that they were getting into the garage (and from there to the house) via an opening that was between the house’s foundation and some concrete we laid, I actually seriously considered pouring something flammable down the crack and setting it on fire. Fortunately, I came to my senses and decided that playing with uncontrolled fire anywhere near my house was a remarkably stupid idea. But, you see, that’s how much I hate the ants. So instead I used bleach, figuring that ants probably wouldn’t like it. They didn’t.
Then they came over the roof and into our kitchen through a small gap in a window. That was it; if they were going to walk up one wall, across the roof of the house, down another wall, and into one little gap, then they were just too stubborn to allow to live.
Once I found their nest, I went unrestrained warfare on their asses. Sweet poison, ant spray, and a long screwdriver to open holes in the ground. I almost used bleach, but I kinda wanted to keep the grass under which they were living. And, yes, I was again tempted to napalm the area, because I wanted them dead. Obligingly, they did and all was quiet for a time.
And then, a few months later, I woke up one morning to find an ant trail marching across my mantelpiece downstairs, and heading to a spot under the carpet. Again, they had gained access through a tiny gap in a window, and this time, they were setting up camp. I had to pull some shelves out of an alcove, pry off some molding, and pull up a section of carpet to get to them, and bathe them in concentrated orange death.
Since then, it’s been quiet around my house. Well, ok, it’s not been at all quiet, but it has been free of ants. But I just know that they’re out there, hiding, biding their time, probing my defenses, searching for a weak spot, and waiting for the day of invasion to come.
I hate them so much.