Last week I mentioned that ants had been swarming the bathroom of my apartment. I figured I had the situation under control when I sprayed the ants with vinegar and they seemed to flee. I assumed I had won the war.
I was incorrect. I woke up Saturday morning only to be greeted by a swarm of ants in my kitchen. It seems that sometime the night before, someone dropped a chocolate chip on the floor and didn't pick it up. Now that I live alone, I have a fairly good idea who it was that dropped the chocolate chip, but I'm not a fan of placing blame.
Though I was working on Saturday, I used my lunch break to pick up the recommended tools for removing ants from your home: caulking gun, caulk, Borax, jam and an industrial bottle of vinegar. Armed with everything I needed to both barricade the ants and engage in biological warfare, I knew that by the end of the day, I'd be ant-free - or a crying mess of a human being. Because the latter was a very real possibility, I also picked up a pack of coolers and a bag of Hershey Kisses. And my boyfriend, because I have no idea how to work a caulking gun.
So four hours later, he had the cracks in the kitchen and bathroom all sealed up and I had made the "concoction of death": a combination of Borax and jam, which apparently ants love, but is also super deadly. I also mopped all the floors with vinegar and water and then vacuumed everything for good measure. Just what a young couple wants to do on a Saturday night.
A fun side note: I sprinkled cinnamon at the entrance to my bedroom. Apparently ants hate cinnamon. I really have no interest in ants joining me in my bed, so a cinnamon barricade seemed reasonable.
Anyway, I woke up Sunday morning to a drastically smaller number of ants! And none in my bed, that I noticed. The remaining ants in the kitchen were hanging out in and around my jam traps, which I'm taking as a signal of their forthcoming deaths.
So I'm tentatively optimistic that I've ended the ant problem for good. I acknowledge that I said this last time, but this week I really mean it.
And if I haven't, I'm just going to pack up and move. I really don't need a two-bedroom apartment anymore. And I'm starting to think this one is jinxed.
Tonaya Marr has dreamt of ants every night since the first ants were noticed. She's very, very ready for the pests to take off. If you have ant-removal advice, please contact Tonaya at [email protected] or send her a tweet @TonayaMarr.
