Ant Rant

Pest control is an ongoing battle in this place – and to keep things interesting the pests seem to be on some sort of rotation schedule. First off, as you know, were the cockroaches. Barely a day went by without a stand-off at the rubbish chute involving a big can of ShieldTox. We had the pest controller round who gave us a load of guff about cleaning the chute – so we persevered with a tried and tested concoction of Dettol and washing up liquid.

In the end you could have eaten your dinner off our rubbish chute – and yet the cockroaches just kept coming, crawling through the small gaps around the chute until we got completely cheesed off and resorted to using gaffer tape to seal the whole thing up. Eventually the management office saw sense (once the roaches had reached the size of a small child’s shoe). Some weeks ago the chutes were fogged, and to this day, not a single roach has been seen. Touch wood.

No sooner had the roaches gone though than we were attacked by a plague of ants. We returned from Perth to find them invading the kitchen in pursuit of a temptingly unwrapped packet of raisins. No problem, I thought. Getting rid of the ants would be as simple as going through the food cupboards and making sure everything was sealed up in plastic containers.

Suffice to say it didn’t work and now the b*&$^(s are everywhere. Now, in the morning when I brush my teeth, I am greeted by a chorus of ants in the sink. More ants march past the kettle defiantly as I make my first cuppa of the day. Then it’s time to fire up the laptop – and guess what?! There are ants on the screen. But where are they coming from? Have they taken up residence in the hard drive?!!

So I have been back to the hardware shop, which sells an intriguing range of products to kill ants. I wasn’t keen on the powders which you sprinkle around so I went for the insecticide chalk stick. “Draw two or three parallel lines across the direction of the ant tracks” the instructions advised. Unfortunately these particular ants seem to have a bad sense of direction, milling around aimlessly rather than taking me to their leader. So I reckon I’ll just draw one mahusive line right around the condo and hope for the best.