Tuesday, April 21, 2009

a veritable plague

Remember this post about the rolly poly bugs? Remember my lamenting the ants that we dealt with last year? The teeny, tiny, yet strong-in-numbers ants? I wrote that post March 31st. Three weeks ago.

After Peter finished reading it, he looked up at me and said the following words... words that stuck fear in my heart...

"I've seen at least half a dozen ants in the last week."

Wh-h-h-h-at???

Apparently he'd seen them in the bathroom and the boys' room and one in our room (OUR ROOM!). The very next day, I saw one too (thanks Murphy). One or two ants a day is annoying and a bit unnerving. But the 8-12 that I've been finding each day? That's a plague.

And folks, these aren't the teeny, tiny little ants that you could easily mistake for a little crumb. These. Are. Big. Ants. They're at least as long as my pinky finger is wide. They're a dark, shiny black. And they're fast, the little buggers. Unfortunately, they're so big that when caught (usually in a wad of toilet paper) they audibly pop when you squeeze them. Ugh. You can actually HEAR IT.

(shiver)

And they don't just stay on the floor. I've found them on the walls, in the tub, scaling the door frames, crawling on the boys' nightlight (and casting a GIANT ANT SHADOW on the ceiling, nasty creepy little bug).

Then yesterday while I was downstairs doing laundry, I felt something on my back...

(blech, can you guess where this is going??)

I whipped up my shirt to find THE BIGGEST ONE YET. RIGHT. ON. MY. BACK.

(I'm seriously having a hard time even writing this out cause my skin feels like it's crawling with ants. Ew. Ew. Ew. EW.)

I'm not entirely sure how it got there, but here's my theory: It jumped on me. It climbed the wall and waited for me -innocently doing laundry in what I believed to be the safety of my own house- to pass underneath.

Then it pounced.

Beastly little creepy crawly ant.

I had him balled up in toilet paper and on his way to a watery grave before he even realized that his plot had been foiled.

I won that battle, but I'm really not sure about the war. And it's making me very nervous...
the conniving ant

ants in my dreams

(not my pictures)

5 comments:

  1. These sound like carpenter ants, which can really do damage to your house if you don't get rid of them.

    Try these people for a kid-friendly extermination solution:

    http://www.evergreenpestcontrol.com/index.html

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh my skin is crawling... I am serious bug-a-phobe. (picture screaming like a little girl)

    I once had a tick on my back when I woke up in the morning. It kept crawling around and I kept thinking I was crazy, nothing could be crawling on me. Then I got up and looked in the mirror. SCREAM! Woke my mom up....thank goodness it was still just crawling....

    CALL the exterminator!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Ugh... I hate ants. We don't have many here thank goodness, but we have creepy crawly flying beetles instead...
    Yeah, I had one land in my food one day... they fly but don't land, just 'drop'

    ReplyDelete
  4. Lynn is right! It sounds like you have Carpenter ants (Camponotus herculeanus). They will do damage to the structure of your home. Try this website:

    http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/cps-spc/pubs/pest/_pnotes/carp-ants-fourmis-charp/index-eng.php

    Good Luck!

    ReplyDelete

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