Adventures in Bug Control: 7/31/11

Our house is great—big and airy, with bright colors on the walls, and more furnished than we expected it to be.  And for the first few days, it seemed like we didn’t really have a bug problem.  Down the street, Kelsey and Danielle complained of a serious ant issue.  The left cereal rolled down in their cabinets before they knew just how bad the ants were, and they ended up with cereal very rich in protein.  Ew.  Rachel, who taught here last year and knew the girl who lived in our house before we did, told me that we had the ants too.  She told me they were in the doors and shelves of the back 2 bedrooms—because they like wet wood.  And any wood in Puerto Rico eventually becomes wet. 

Still, I didn’t see it.  I bought some Raid and when I saw a few on my dining room table one morning, I sprayed liberally.  But the bottle instructed me to spray ant trails, and I didn’t see any. 

Jenni’s arrival last night seemed to bring the bugs out to say hello, like they were excited to meet her. 

Jenni has 2 wooden shelves attached to her walls.  Sunday night she went to clean the bottom one before putting her things on it.  When she put the slightest weight on the shelf, the front half of it broke off, and the inside was crawling with maggoty buggers.  She called me from the living room, and I attacked the shelves with a steady stream of Raid, though we knew the bugs were probably deep inside. 

Our hopes were not high that the shelf would be torn out and replaced soon…the school seems pretty slow-moving on home repair issues so far.  However, when Eddie happened to stop over later that night, Jenni told him about it.  To our surprise he took a hammer to the shelves right away and got the bottom one out of there.  So at least that’s taken care of.  (Chance of a new one going in: likely very slim)

Not pictured: the fan, mid-air as it fell from the
 top shelf--approximately right above his head





Right before bed, I found my first ant trail.  It was crawling from the hall closet ceiling, down into my room, in a straight line under my light switch, then up the corner of my closet to the ceiling.  Out came the Raid again, stopping them all in their tracks.  However, our bottle ran out as Jenni called that she had a trail by her ceiling as well. 

Monday’s project: buy more Raid, and air-tight containers in which to store food.  

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