Susan's Place Transgender Resources

I'm starting to get freaked out here.  A couple of weeks ago, while hunting down a leak in my hot tub, I discovered carpenter ants had taken up residency in the solid foam insulation.  Once I removed the wood skirt they went scrambling.

For years, when I find a bug in the house, I catch it and relocate it outside.  It's my no kill policy.  So when I found the ants I just let them relocate themselves.  And it seemed they had.

Then I found I had another leak.  And while digging I found more ants.  And I found some structural damage to the tub.  Not good.  So I decided more serious intervention was necessary in the form of RAID.

About a week later we began to see ants in the house.  I've been here for 24 years and I've never seen this many.  So we began to swat them, and swat them, and swat them.

Yesterday I found an ant crawling on my leg.  I killed it.

Today I felt an ant on my leg and I did the same.  Then another immediately after but this one bit me!  Then another ant bit me!  All this in about 5 minutes time.  This is totally new to me.  And then I thought about the NEW policy which has reverted back to see and be killed.  Then I started to wonder... Have I brought bad Karma on myself?  Is there some mystical force out there (or in here)?

We all lived in peace.  Then I started playing Delta Force.  And now it seems they are fighting back.  What's next?  My house?

I don't think it's bad Karma, Julie. You just got an ant problem.


Gennee

:)

Oh no Gennee, I've upset the balance of the universe!  Where we used to live in harmony with the ants has now become a bloody battlefield, strewn with the bodies of ants.  And if we leave the dead ants there, the living will come and take them away.  Maybe that smoke I see out in my back yard is a funeral pyre.  :D

But I fear this may not be the worst!  Next, it could be THEM!
(https://www.susans.org/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fmyfirst.classicfilmfreak.netdna-cdn.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads2%2F2008%2F11%2Fthem_121404.gif&hash=265746f6fc5bc773d5239157361fcd677ccee9b6)

You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won't have it.

THEM! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2PLls02gOU#)

Yes Janet, I heard the man on the radio.  But when he said, "Stay in your homes" I knew we were doomed.  They are already HERE!!!!

Flame throwers seemed to work pretty good in the movie, but that would probably be throwing the baby out with the bath water.

Reminds me of when I was a kid and the birds used to eat the cherries off the tree, but they always left enough for one or two pies.  One year I stood daily guard and sprayed them with a water hose, but in the end, not a single cherry left for us!  I think they are smarter than we think.

I've heard boric acid powder will deter ants and such, might be worth a try.  Another thought are those electronic pest control thingies you plug in.  Supposed to work on roaches, not sure about ants - I think they emit some frequency that insects don't like.

Not sure your religious affiliation, but my Buddhist teacher swears he got rid of the same problem by chanting a tibetan mantra.

Haha. I have the same no kill policy. Though I don't have an ant problem to that magnitude. But if there's one in my glass, I try to rescue it from the water to safety. :D

Quote from: gennee on June 18, 2011, 11:54:03 AM
I don't think it's bad Karma, Julie. You just got an ant problem.


Gennee

:)

Kia Ora Gennee,

::) No...It would seem the "ants" have a "Julie" problem to deal with... ;) :D ;D

Metta Zenda :)

Kia Ora,

::) All jokes aside [if that's at all possible  :D]...Where would we be without our friends the insects ?

Sadly Americans spend "Billions" of dollars each years on pesticides, and the weirdest thing is the only insects whose numbers seem to dwindle are the "beneficial" ones, the pest type just build immunity to whatever we  "intelligent " humans bombard them with...

Entomologists believe two percent of any insect population have a natural immunity to [so it would seem ] any newly developed insecticide designed to target the given insect pest population...Take the humble Germany cockroach Blattella germanica for example... ::) Which reminds me, the humble roach reached its peek in evolution over 300 million years ago, that is the cockroach that we see today looks the same has it did 300 million years ago,,,  :icon_yikes:


Insects are our friends people! We could learn a awful lot from them...

Metta Zenda :) [Wearing her entomological cap]

I used to have a bug vacuum that slurped up the little ones (mostly spiders and bees) and I could release them outside.  Doing this helped me to become a little less afraid of them.

I think that on the leg bit they did eventually just attack on the fact of an aggressor killing them openly, but I think for the general ant problem, that it's just generally them wanting to spread their territory into your house to nom up its wood, not so much a karma thing. ^^

Maybe they're just feeling... antagonised.

Sorry, couldn't resist. :P

I hate bugs! I don't have a no kill policy, I just hate killing them... so I call for my brothers ;) But if its a spider I'm screaming and running for the hills. I blame that spider horror movie I saw when I was 8. The spiders burst out of people and got bigger each time o.O

I did wake up in bed with ants crawling on me :icon_help:. After screaming showering drinking a whiskey and changing the bed, in no particular order. I traced the troal to the front door. They were coming from the garden straight to me

Cindy

Get a pet anteater?

(https://www.susans.org/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fupload.wikimedia.org%2Fwikipedia%2Fcommons%2Fthumb%2F2%2F2a%2FGiant_Anteater.jpg%2F800px-Giant_Anteater.jpg&hash=2eea63f7926cabf995fa643a85bfb8ab521f286c)

You wouldn't be killing anything and you'd be helping the balance of nature, plus you'd have a rather unique pet for a conversation piece  :laugh:

Quote from: Zenda on June 19, 2011, 03:31:14 PM
Sadly Americans spend "Billions" of dollars each years on pesticides, and the weirdest thing is the only insects whose numbers seem to dwindle are the "beneficial" ones, the pest type just build immunity to whatever we  "intelligent " humans bombard them with...

Entomologists believe two percent of any insect population have a natural immunity to [so it would seem ] any newly developed insecticide designed to target the given insect pest population...Take the humble Germany cockroach Blattella germanica for example... ::) Which reminds me, the humble roach reached its peek in evolution over 300 million years ago, that is the cockroach that we see today looks the same has it did 300 million years ago,,,  :icon_yikes:

But if you simply lay out a dusting of diatomaceous earth, your problems will soon be over.  Insects like ants and roaches walk over the fine powder and it abrades their exoskeletons and kills them through dehydration.  It's kind of like sliding over broken glass.  And they can't build up an immunity.  Also they carry the stuff with them back to the nest.  More rolling around in broken glass.   :o

Or a jar of "Ant Rid"( Borax in a sugary solution). They carry it back into the nest and problem solved.

One nest more or less won't make much difference in Ant Universe, so don't feel bad.

Karen, in butch "country girl mode".

Doll,

Never knew what ant rid was :laugh:

Perfect it works so well

Damn sight easier than pouring boiling water down their ant holes

:embarrassed:
Cindy

Hi Cindy.
For interest of non-Aussies I had a friend on a farm other end of the state who used to deal with Bull Ants (1 &1/2" long, aggressive and have a nasty sting as well as huge jaws) by catching a few with tweezers and painting them with Sheep Dip. Same effect but on steroids, coz they are too!
>:-)
Karen.

I accidentally stood on a bull ant nest, they got up my jeans and I was bitten dozens of times. Very, very painful. Like being touched with a soldering iron for each bite.

Ants in Tassie? or are they inbred as well? :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: (This is an Aussie joke and not offensive to Australians)

Hugs

Cindy

 :laugh: Even have 2 headed ones. 
Down side of Tassie is that like southern Victoria, they have Jack Jumpers.  Nasty little Bogan Ants that will even fight with ones from the same nest.    I have been desensitised to Bee stings so I should be ok if I do get stung.  People have been known to go into Anaphylaxis from them.  Why is our wildlife so venemous??
Karen.

I have a colleague who is an expert on JJs. Foul little buggers. I had not realised they where in Tas!

Just for interest we have the deadliest of any creature but more people are killed by insects than any of the big buggers with the teeth. Sharks and snakes a few per year. Bees, ants, spiders = hundreds!!!!


Cindy

There was a Warner Bros. cartoon where Elmer Fudd was trying to have a 4th of July picnic and angered a nest of ants when he blew up a firecracker at the entrance of the ants.

The ants won...

-Sandy

Australia has the most toxic wildlife of any continent, I don't know why, but the spiders are something else.

V M suggested getting an anteater. Interesting idea but is it practical?


Gennee

???

Quote from: Julie Marie on June 20, 2011, 01:36:40 AM
But if you simply lay out a dusting of diatomaceous earth, your problems will soon be over.  Insects like ants and roaches walk over the fine powder and it abrades their exoskeletons and kills them through dehydration.  It's kind of like sliding over broken glass.  And they can't build up an immunity.  Also they carry the stuff with them back to the nest.  More rolling around in broken glass.   :o

Kia Ora Julie,

::) It's true the mode of action of DE is to act like a "sponge", it absorbs the protective oily/waxy substance on the insect's cuticle...However unless one can actually coat the individual insect with the dust, they [in particular the Germany cockroach] will avoid it, they have a tendency to avoid any dusty areas because the dust [any dust] tends to clog/block their spiracles [breathing holes on the side of their bodies']...

When I first took an interest in urban pestology[I was living in Australia at the time and I was quite  fearful of what I didn't understand... So in order to over come this fear, I became an urban pestologist=studying vertebrae and invertebrate pest of the urban environment ], there were all these new synthetic insecticide on the market, companies had started to move away from the more natural slow acting "proven" products, but nowadays we have have come a full cycle where the likes of Boric acid and DE are now the "new old" new wonder products...



Metta Zenda :)

Quote from: Zenda on June 20, 2011, 03:26:03 PM
However unless one can actually coat the individual insect with the dust, they [in particular the Germany cockroach] will avoid it, they have a tendency to avoid any dusty areas because the dust [any dust] tends to clog/block their spiracles [breathing holes on the side of their bodies']...

So you circle the wagons.  Either circle the DE around their known nests or circle your house.  Problem solved.  And all those other exoskeleton critters won't cross the line either.  Now I won't have to clean up the crumbs.  I can leave them for when the cupboard is bare.