The ants go marching one by one

I've never before regarded ants a foe, at most a pesky insect that has a knack for disrupting picnics, yucky in mass but generally not too bothersome. I have on occasion, thought of them with curiosity and maybe even admiration. These creatures are industrious and incredibly strong. I am impressed by their ability to carry weight that far exceeds their own and to do this while scaling the vertical objects of the world. There are countless varieties of ants and their nusiance-factor varies depending on its kind. The common sugar ant, that you might find on the kitchen window sill, not so bad really, your run of the mill ant used as bait by childhood Timmy for antlion dens (see here), you could almost call that utilitarian. Also worthy of mention are the red fire ants that build mounds in the pastures of Mississippi ready to swarm and devour any unfortunate cow and then there are those exotic African ants that you see on the discovery channel, defoliating entire forests in a swathe. In any case it is only recently that I have developed a potent distaste for the tireless ant, particularly the miniature Thai variety.

We've adjusted to our life here in Thailand quite well. We've learned to use the toilets, shovel with the fork, eat from the spoon, cope with fifty kids in a classroom, and accept extremely late notice on most important events. I'd like to think that most of the people that we work with and know could attest to our adaptation. We can order food at a restaurant without too much laughter or subsequent shock at the result when the dish arrives with tentacles, we can wear a yellow polo shirt to work five days a week (well okay four, five is just too many) and we've knocked off two scorpions in the kitchen. We have even triumphed over our two greatest obstacles to comfort, cold water showers and poor Internet access. So it was in their attack of these precious comforts that the ants became public enemy number one.

There has been an invasion of such scale that even as I write it, I know that I will not be able to convey its magnitude. We have had ants, spiders and lizards in the house since we moved in and up until now we have been able to live in relative peace. Most of the resident spiders look like daddy long legs (which I've never been afraid of) and hang out in the corners on the ceiling, all other spiders spotted indoors are promptly smashed, usually under Tim's flip flop. The lizards keep to themselves and kindly eat undesirable bugs, for this I sweep up their little turds with minimal complaint and am generally thankful for their presence. The ants on the other hand have on more than one occasion been a force to be reckoned with. They will descend from the ceiling in a line and march to their destination in droves.



One troop has persisted in their desire for the kitchen sink ( I have agreed to share this territory as they can come and go without interfering with clean dishes and counter space). Others march straight into our hot-pot that we use every morning to make coffee. This area I would like to be able to put up a fight for but they find it every time and some of them die in the hot water which simultaneously urks me and brings me joy. Dirty dishes are an obvious target and we try to minimize dirty dish loitering but we can't seem to get out of bed any earlier so sometimes the dishes get put on hold.


*Dramatization* Tim fleeing with the hotpot.

One afternoon, I heard a yelp coming from the bathroom where Tim was taking a shower. The troops crossed the line when they started invading our towels. Tim called for my help as the ants were biting and crawling all over him. They caught me off guard one time and I payed for my laziness with a bite to the eyelid. We relocated the towels to our extra bedroom which worked pretty well except for when we forgot to grab it before getting into the shower. Running, dripping wet, for a towel after a warm shower, it's just a downer. Who knew that ants liked cotton? Anyone? Well, they do, and they have invaded bath towels, hand towels and even our jar of q-tips!

We tried reaching out to the experts. At the lunch table we would mention ants and try to see what the Thai folks did to keep their towels and q-tips ant-free. It seemed that no one understood us, or maybe they didn't believe us, we couldn't tell. "The little animals, they are a problem for you?" we were asked. "Yes, the little animals are a problem." Definitely a problem.

After hanging out with Jen and Ringo in Bangkok, I learned from Ringo that if you put soap in the ant path they won't cross over it. I have encircled a slew of ants with dish soap, it of course doesn't put a dent in their numbers but it is satisfying to have at least a few prisoners of war.


Lisa crazed and holding dish soap

The only solution we were getting from the Thai folks was to spray them or put chemical chalk lines around things we wanted to be ant-free. Neither of us was interested in spraying or sprinkling poison in the house so we continued negotiations and peace talks. The obvious problem is that ants are quite unreasonable. Frankly, I don't think they have any intention of compromise.

The ants eventually found the towel in the extra bedroom, that along with my closet of clothes and drawer of socks and underwear. Now, if there if one place an ant just cannot be, it is in one's underthings. This particular attack strategically took place the night before we were leaving to travel for the weekend; Ant intelligence may be more advanced than we previously thought. It was scary leaving the house undefended. They keep sending more and more troops on a daily basis, the peace talks are clearly failing. We had visions of a total ant take-over in our absence. Before we left the house we took everything out of my closet (good thing I packed light) and hung it outside to de-bug and then relocated them into Tim's closet for temporary (we hope) shelter as there is little room for the refugees there.

Ants then started to mysteriously appear in piles on the floor on our extra bedroom some dead some aimlessly wandering. We would sweep it up and if we stuck around long enough we could watch them reappear. They were falling from the ceiling. (Anyone remember the flying ant nightmare in the basement of the High St. house? At least these ones don't have wings). It took us a bit to figure out what was happening but we finally discovered that the ants were getting onto the fluorescent light where they were getting electrocuted or roasted by the heat of it and falling to the ground below. The strange thing was that it would happen whether the light was on or off.

For this we called in Pei Oh. She seemed a little puzzled about the pyre under the light but we were finally given a Thai confirmation that ants will get into towels, clothes and bedding. We were given the same advice as before, spray um.
Tim was not ready to give in (I, on the other hand, was losing my will for a clean fight, I wanted to spray them all with poison and let them curl up and die). He instead diligently took the light bulb out wiped away any potential ant attractions ( fried bug parts and such) and took the bulb outside to let the ants disperse. But they persisted in whatever it was that they were after none the less. Pyre after pyre, we swept them away. At least some were dying but I was afraid that the survivors on the floor would wonder over to the spare bed and start a three pronged attack.

As for the towels, we have rigged a system to keep them clear of ants, though not original it is supreme in design. Our inspiration was the food cabinet and it works like a charm. The four legs of the drying rack are sitting in small bowls of water, a mote the ants can't swim across to wallow in their most beloved towels. Suckers! This does means that the towels are in the kitchen now but hey, the territory is impenetrably ours. ha!





Tim and Lisa one, ants....well whose counting?

--- The Last Straw ---

Most recently we came home to two ant pyres under two different lights, one in the living room and the other in the hallway. If you need a refresher on the girth of the hallway please review pictures posted on The House," its not what you could call wide and the lights is of course nearly in the middle. In order to pass the ant grave without stepping on them and more importantly in attempts to keep your head ant-free you had to sidle up to the wall and mindfully shimmy by. Agrr. Those stupid ants! What in the world do they want with the light?

Again, we took the lights out and put them outside to allow the pests to disperse. That night as we were setting up our computer to watch a movie I hopped, freshly showered, into a bed crawling with ants.


*Dramatization* Lisa finds ants in bed

That's it! I had had it! This means war!

I was put out about the eyelid and genuinely mad about the underwear but the bed, that's just going too far! I lost it and began ranting about the ants and my ant woes. Tim managed to keep his cool (I think it's because he wasn't the one to lay down in them) reigned in my useless ant insults and carried the bedding outside, as always, to let the ants disperse. I began to hunt out the ant path. I wanted to know where they were coming from so I could massacre them. It took a while but I eventually discovered their route from the ceiling, down the door frame, from there they crossed over onto the wall near the light switch and headed behind the vanity onto a chord that was touching the wall and acted as a bridge, onto the vanity. They marched from one side of the vanity to the other, down to the floor, over to the bed frame, through the mosquito net and onto our bed. Those monsters! I got the soap from the kitchen, doused the door frame and tried to cut them off at a few different passes. They eventually found a way around it as they usually do. I had no choice but to wage chemical warfare, the ants have made me crazy! Tim obliged. For the last few nights I have had ant nightmares all night long. I wake up thinking that they are crawling on me. You might think that it ends here, with the ants in the worst possible location is the house, but as you may have noticed Tim has not yet had his breaking point and I wouldn't want to come off as a hysterical woman that can't handle the "little animals."

They cracked Tim's thick candy shell the morning after operation "Bed Infestation," when we discovered the ants had invaded his lap top. I promise that I am being conservative when I say that there were at least 600 ants in the computer (some estimates have been as high as 1000). Tim unplugged the computer and moved it to the kitchen table (this would not have been my location of choice but it was not a good time to point that out) this was my chance to be the partner of reason. I watched as Tim picked up the computer and moved it to another location on the table leaving behind about 20-50 ants. He continued this same pattern of moving the lap top from one spot to another on the table, each time leaving behind an unbelievable quantity of ants and ranting about his loathing. "They'll disperse," I encouraged him, "they always do."


*Dramatization* It took a moment for Tim to decide how to combat the ants that invaded the computer.

The key we've discovered is to separate them from their destination, if they can't deliver to the queen they will eventually go. Where they go, I'm not exactly sure, probably back to their evil lair to plot more evil ant attacks.

For now, all is quiet on the eastern front. I am typing this e-mail on our lap top under the light in the living room and there aren't any ants in the computer nor are they dropping on my head so things are looking up. Maybe they will call a truce and we can all sing karaoke together with the neighbors and if not we can always just spray um.