Ant-proofing

Every summer the ants hold a procession in my apartment. Unlike the traditional Lenten Santacruzan and Flores de Mayo of humans, the ant parade lasts for days and weeks. They start from the corner of a window or a crevice in a wall and form a long linear trail that winds across the bedroom and out the door, usually ending in the kitchen.

When they get there they are inevitably disappointed because I don’t cook, I don’t often eat at home, and there are no crumbs for them to carry back to their colony. At most they find candy wrappers, coffee grounds, banana peels, and sometimes leftovers in the trash. Measly pickings, but apparently not measly enough to convince the ants to move somewhere else.

I have a lot of respect for the ant: any creature that can carry 50 times its body weight is nothing to sneer at. If ants were human-sized, they would easily beat us in a fight, not to mention that they’re very organized. They are an altogether admirable species, extremely useful in preserving the ecology of the soil. Ongoing research on ant behavior could have applications in traffic engineering, swarm intelligence, and ant-based computer algorithms.

There are altruistic ants that sacrifice their lives so that the colony can survive.

As much as possible I leave them alone. You want to have a parade? Fine. You want my garbage? Go ahead. Our species can coexist in peace and harmony. (It’s different with cockroaches. Cockroaches must be terminated with extreme prejudice.) Sure, I’m paying the rent and they’re not, but it’s their planet, too, and they’ve been around longer.

And then they opened hostilities. One morning I was awakened by a twinge in my leg, followed by an itch. A red ant had bitten me. It lingered at the scene of the attack, allowing me to catch and squish it. I hoped it was a freak occurrence, but that night it happened again. Closer inspection of the premises showed that the ant trail was running along the side of my bed. The occasional ant would take a detour across my mattress, where it would encounter me, the occupant.

No matter how inter-species friendly one tries to be, being woken up by an ant bite is not a pleasant experience. It’s enough to turn you into the Rambo of the ant world. Further inspection showed that the ants had discovered a major food source in the house after all: they had broken into an unopened bag of dry cat food (kibble). They found a tiny, tiny tear in the bag and were beginning to swarm in. Fortunately I spotted them before they could launch a full-scale invasion, but I had to empty the bag, pick out and squash every single ant that had gotten in, and transfer the kibble to an air-tight container. It was labor-intensive.

Insecticides are not an option—I don’t care what manufacturers claim, I’m not exposing my cats to that, and the smell of bug spray makes me physically ill. Insect chalk seems practical—you draw a line on the floor and ants won’t cross it—but I’ll have to research its possible effects on pets. It occurred to me that citronella candles have insect-repellent properties—maybe they would work on ants. So I went looking for citronella oil. I found some citronella insect repellent spray for children, but it was too expensive. Fortunately SM’s houseware department carries herbal room and linen sprays—lavender, peppermint, a dozen other flavors, and citronella.

When sprayed on the ant trail, the oil-based citronella stopped the ants dead in their tracks. It was a massacre, but they died in a burst of fresh garden fragrance. If they’d left my skin and the cat food alone, I would’ve let them alone. Ants form linear trails by releasing pheromones—chemical substances—which remain for days. The oily residue seemed to dissuade the ants from re-forming their trail; maybe the smell of citronella masked the ant pheromones, or some other ingredient in the spray messed them up. Maybe any other scent would’ve worked as well.

I’m hoping that the highly-developed social behaviors of ants do not include exacting retribution on humans who kill their kind. Just in case, I moved my bed away from the walls and the trails and drew a line of citronella on the floor around it, like a magical barrier.

As for the cat food containers and bowls, I deterred future ant incursions by placing them in moats. Yes, like the defenses of medieval towns. I put the containers in large platters of water so the ants couldn’t get to them. As far as I know, ants don’t swim. My cats don’t seem to be bothered by the ants. The ants probably figured that it’s too much trouble getting through that thick fur.

According to helpful websites, ants can be eliminated using a sponge soaked in soapy water or a spray bottle filled with soapy water. The cracks or crevices that ants crawl in and out of can be sealed up with caulking sealers. Edibles should be stored in jars with tight-fitting hinged lids or gaskets so ants can’t enter through the threads.

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All is quiet on the homefront, but summer is just beginning. Know any effective ant-proofing methods? E-mail emotional weatherreport@gmail.com.