| Issue #48, March 9, 2007 |
Spring Cleaning
by Sabrina C. Mashburn
What exactly is spring cleaning all about? For me, it’s about getting the millions of tiny ants, who have been slowly taking over my house since the first frost, to move out. Now, don’t think that they are visible all the time. No, these ants are invisible, unless I leave my nearly-empty glass of chocolate soymilk on the nightstand before bed, or an unrinsed dish in the sink. In that case, it takes only a few minutes before both of those objects disappear beneath a glittering coat of hungry ants.
My first line of attack was cleaning – everything. I scrubbed the toaster oven from top to bottom, cleaned every dish and dirty glass, scrubbed the counter tops, took apart the stove. However, the next day, there were still a few errant ant-scouts marching around. And as soon as I took out the cutting board to slice some steak, there they were, waiting for crumbs. Having ants in your kitchen isn’t really the same as having other insects there, because ants’ bodies secrete a natural coating of antibiotics and antibacterial substances. So ants are naturally sterilized and very clean. But the thought of opening my morning cereal and seeing it devoured by the little beasts was enough to force me to pull out the big guns – Borax, a pesticide.
My mother had found this ant poison called Terro, which is made with Borax, and comes in a little squeeze bottle similar to Purel hand sanitizing gel. The warning on the box – which states that it is not to be used anywhere near food, children or pets – proves its potency. I don’t advocate using pesticides, and am violently allergic to all of them, but for the sake of my pantry, I armed myself with elbow-length rubber gloves and went to work. When applying Terro, you rip off little square, laminated cardboard targets from the box and squeeze a dot of poison in the middle of each one. There were only so many targets and I had seen ants in every room, so I had to prioritize. The kitchen got two, both near the electrical socket I had seen them crawling in and out of (their point of entry, I presumed). My bedroom nightstand, where my glass of soymilk had been attacked, also got two. One on the nightstand itself and one near the edge of the carpet where they seem to march from the baseboard to the nightstand. Thirty minutes after the targets were laid, they were crawling with ants. It was vile – right next to my bed were thousands of ants, just gobbling up poison and maybe even tracking poison all over my room. The box said that, at first, the poison would attract many ants, then they would bring it back to the colony and they would all die. I felt terrible knowing that innocent ant pupae that had never even left their nest would be killed to save my morning cereal, but as ants have that irritating, yet ingenious, habit of tracing each other’s steps to food, every ant in the colony would be waiting for me to set down my food or drink and then attack it – unless I killed them all.
This morning, I awoke to find not a single ant in my room or on the poison. Either they had such a feast that they are all sleeping, or they were all dead. Hopefully, they will rest in peace, permanently. The box of poison said that it sometimes takes two weeks to get rid of them all and that in the event you run out of little Terro targets, you can use foil. I hope it doesn’t come to that.
For now, I will consider the battle won and continue to scrupulously scrub every inch of my home and make sure every glass and dish is washed before it is set down on a surface. Maybe they will learn their lesson? All the food in the Mashburn house is poison, don’t go there. If not, then it’s back to setting out traps for me, or, worse yet, calling an exterminator and getting hives and a cough myself for the sake of the pantry. Will it ever end? Only time will tell. Until then, enjoy your spring cleaning and beware the clever Hamptons ants.
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