Curse of the Ants

I now interrupt the CA trip posts for one on our ant situation. Chase and I have decided we are cursed. It all started back in UT. We are currently living in my parents' unfinished basement. Well a couple weeks ago, my parents' home started being invaded by ants. First it was the garage, then the kitchen, then the stairs, bathroom, and finally the basement where we dwell. At first it was just kind of an annoyance. Then it became gross when while taking a shower one morning I pulled one from my hair...000000! Then I discovered them in my shoes, and our clothes. So I dumped a bunch of salt everywhere to try and kill the ants without involving poison since we obviously have kids around. Apparently, the ants are supposed to love salt and will carry it back to their colony where upon they will gorge themselves to the point that they need to drink so much water they will explode. If it works, then COOL! I want to try an experiment and find a jar and put a bunch of ants in it with salt and some water and watch what happens. You can't beat exploding ants! Well, then as a double wammy in my offense against the ants I also laid out some chili powder. Ants are supposed to hate the stuff and it will act as a deterrent. The salt is supposed to take a week or so, and we've been gone. I'm currious as to whether the ants are actually gone, I sure hope they are by the time we get back.

In the process of leaving UT, I had hoped we had left our ant problems behind us. Well, it just ended up following us to CA. Or, maybe the ants were really ticked off and sent word to their CA cousins that we were headed their way. On Tues. when we drove down to see Chase's dad's fire station we had to pull over and rescue Emery from a red ant attack. She was happy one second and the next she was fussing and crying and I couldn't console her with anything. I happened to glance down at her and noticed a red ant on her leg. I looked her up and down and there were a whole bunch of red ants swarming her car seat. I frantically started smooshing and killing as many ants as I could and swatting them off of her until Chase could pull off of the freeway. I quickly had Emery down to her bare bum making sure all the ants were out of her clothes and her diaper. Barbara took out the car seat and Chase cleared the van seat of remaining ants. We moved her car seat and I sat where she previously sat in case there were any more. I'm sure people driving by sure got a show and wondered what the heck we were doing.

After we got back in the car after our fire station trip, I soon noticed that ants had somehow gotten inside the ziplock bag of muffins I had brought in the car for a snack. There were a ton of them swarming all over. As soon as we got to Trader Joe's, Barbara and Chase took the kids inside to shop while I tried to "de-ant" the car. They kept coming up from somewhere inside the car. The only thing we can figure is that while we were parked on the dirt in front of the house they must have been attracted to the crumbs in our car and crawled in somehow. Our van is not the cleanest, especially traveling with 4 kids, but I never would have thought ants would be attracted to it. It was completely crazy and the freakiest thing. We've parked there so many times in the past and nothing like this has ever happened. The worst thing about it is that the ants here bite. Poor Emery has 2 bites on her leg, but we're fortunate that was all.

We drove home thinking we had seen the last of our little insect foes. We came home and made plans to clean out the van thoroughly and leave a special ant poison coctail that Barbara whipped up. Later that day Chase decided to go running and went in our room (Brig's room) to change. He discovered the clothes he had left on our bed that morning were covered in more ants. He figures that they were attracted to the salsa he had spilled on his shirt, but it was just a tiny spot. How insane are these ants to notice a hint of salsa and climb a bed to get at it. I vacuumed off the bed and inspected the floor and sheets. I was afraid to wake up with red ant welts.

So, the battle of the ants continues. We lived up here in the high desert for 2 years and nothing like this has ever happened to us. I just hope that the red ants don't hitch a ride back to UT with us to visit their UT cousins.