Pests

Sara and I have been busy battling the local ant population at our house the past few days. We thought we were being diligent about cleaning up our kitchen and food, but the ants are determined and keep finding the last morsel of food we didn't see at the bottom of the sink or that there is a way into the sugar package that is encased in two ziplock bags.

It's been a frustrating situation. We hesitate to spray for bugs in our kitchen, since we do prepare food for ourselves there and have no inclination to ingest toxins. But the frustration with the constant battles with ants is getting to us.

The ants here are different from the ants I've dealt with back on the mainland. There are two variety of ants here: sugar ants and protein ants. The sugar ants are tiny and fast. They are about the size of an eye of a needle. They are faster than any insect that size has a right to be. The ants quickly fan out across the whole house and scout out every little piece of food that escapes your notice. Once they find the food, there is a constant stream of them headed to it and taking back what they can carry to their colony.

The protein ants are normal sized, with a black head and tail, and a red body. They have a nasty bite that leaves welts. Thankfully these ones have not made their presence known in the house. The only troubles we've had with them has been leaving a plate a food next to the barbecue an hour and them swarm it.

Thus far we haven't sprayed for the ants, we've just been wiping them up with spray cleaner, but this solution just isn't cutting it. One of our longer tenured friends on the island suggested a poison paste you leave out on a sheet of paper. The ants find it, take it back to the colony and the poison is slow enough to kill them there. I'm not a huge fan of insect genocide, but I'd also like to reclaim my kitchen. We'll see if that solution works when we put it to use this weekend.

At least we haven't had the rat, centipede and cockroach issues other houses have had...