Ant Attack

I close my eyes and see ants. At night, my mind replays images of the pests, marching all in a row, into our house. I daydream of squashing them.

I've now emptied three cans of Raid in the past month, trying to keep these invaders at bay. They haven't made many indoor appearances lately, other than last weekend (when, after having the family over, we failed to catch every stray M&M or crumb on the floor).

Maria and I ventured down to Chinatown several weeks ago to pick up a few boxes of the magic ant chalk. It's easy to find; just about every vendor pushes the stuff. We immediately went home, and as a trail of ants attemped to enter through the crack along side one of our windows, I drew a (chalk) line on the window sill. The ants stopped and searched for ways around it. I tried it a couple of times, and the result was always the same: Eventually, one brave ant will go ahead and walk over the chalk line. They won't die. Other ants will follow. And suddenly, the chalk line is useless. I haven't used much of the ant chalk since.

Meanwhile, the big problem is outside, where the rebels continue to claim steps, paths, the driveway and the garage. And they've become more stealth. Rather than a uniform line, they've gotten wise to the streaming can of Raid and now disperse every which direction.

An unfortunately, after heavy fighting, the ants appear to have claimed one of our trash cans. Even after spraying it several times, the swarm of ants was too big to eliminate. For now, they own the can.

And in my latest disgusting discovery, maggot-like squirmy things (carpenter ant larve?) have been nesting in the cracks on our driveway.

At the risk of OD'ing on Raid, there's got to be a better way to get this under control. Or is our ant problem a normal function of owning a home in SoCal? Do share.