The Ants Go Marching One by One

Disclaimer: Lisa, do not read this until after your visit.

I don’t know what it is lately, but the ants around here have been completely out of control.

One day, I went to put on my pants, which were hanging on a hook on the wall (and by hook I mean a nail), and they were completely covered in ants. Luckily, I had another clean pair to wear, so I just had to shake the ants out of the dirty ones and give them to Doña to make sure any remaining ants would be dead before I wore them again. Needless to say, I didn’t want ants in my pants.

If there’s one thing I hate more than ants in my pants, it’s when ants (and other creepy crawlers) go to the one place where they know they should not. You may have already guessed where this place is, since it’s the only place that is covered with a protective barrier, warning impending doom to whatever passes through. So yes, ants were in my bed. Now these weren’t just any ants, but ants that bite. Their sting isn’t too bad, a little worse than mosquitoes, but not as long lasting. I would have preferred that a big spider were in my bed rather than ants because spiders are more easily removed. Also, there is no other choice but to kill the ants.

This all occurred when I went down to my room to go to bed. I walked in to my room, and noticed a large, brown, moving mass on my mosquito net. I walked over and saw a ton of ants not only on the mosquito net, but also on the sheets, traipsing along as if it were their territory that I was trespassing on. It seems as though ants are just the right size to fit through the holes in the netting. I would have taken a picture, but this was a serious situation that required immediate attention. There was no time to fiddle around with a camera.

To begin the removal, I needed to think of a way that wouldn’t involve killing the ants one by one with the tip of my finger. Immediately I thought of mosquito repellant. I figured that if mosquito repellant repels mosquitoes, it might also deter ants. At once, I began spraying the ants. They slowed down but they didn’t seem as bothered by the repellant as mosquitoes. Time to think of a new solution.

I had seen a friend do this before, not to kill ants though. This solution would also require mosquito repellant, in addition to a flame. It just so happens that mosquito repellant is highly flammable. These ants had no idea what they were in for by invading my sleeping quarters.

It just so happened that the ants were entering my mosquito net and bed through a light fixture that is closely placed to my bed. There is a small gap between the ceiling and the fixture through which they were passing. I had to deal with this area first, to reduce the amount of ants that were coming in. While using my makeshift torch on this light fixture, I had to be careful not to come to close to the netting, as it is very flammable. In sequence, I would do a torching, then a sweeping. In this process, some of the ants would just be knocked out for a little bit, and in the sweeping stage I would be bitten. After getting rid of the ants on the light fixture, I covered the gap with duct tape (use number 142 I have found for duct tape here). Ant problem solved.

However, there were still some ants on the mosquito net and bed. Not as many as before, but still plenty. This would require the one by one smashing with my finger. After the situation was all clear, I went to sleep, only being bitten by 4 or 5 rogue ants throughout the night.

So even though most of you guys think I’m living the life here, I still have to deal with some pretty nasty shit.