Ants Alive!

Every year we seem to have a minor ant problem within our home. I have more ant stories than any one person wants to hear. Suffice to say ever since exterminators handled the major ant population soon after we moved in (which may have done in our cat as well - that has never been proven), a little Raid sprayed around the baseboards downstairs seemed to take care of matters.

Until this year.

I noticed small, red ants around the cat's food area that wasn't going away on its own. So I sprayed the perimeter of the room and thought that was the end of the story.

Turns out, the ants showed up in the bedroom next door. "Just spray around your baseboards. That should handle it," I advised. 

Then the ants marched onward and upward.

I had been finding the odd ant upstairs and assumed I had brought it in from outside with me and let it go at that. Then this morning, I found 10 ants on the kitchen counter within my first minute of making my morning coffee. Then five more on the floor. Then more by the back door mat. That's when I stopped counting.

I pulled out the ant spray we have been using and read the label. CONTROLS ants. It says nothing of KILLING them. Suddenly a Raid commercial flashed through my mind. RAID. Kills bugs DEAD!

Our ant spray was simply "controlling" the ants by making their current living conditions uncomfortable enough to move on. 

There went the spare moments of my morning. Cleaning. Killing. Spraying. Cleaning. Killing. Spraying. And the ants kept marching on.

I was finally forced to take action. I made an emergency IN PERSON run to our neighborhood Canadian Tire (no time to order online and wait for the "pick up" email this time) and bought ant traps. No "no name" brand was good enough for me. "RAID. Kills bugs DEAD" ran on a loop in my brain. I searched until I found exactly what I was looking for.

Here's hoping four ant traps placed strategically around where they kept appearing this morning will do its job. I hope they aren't simply moving into the living room.