Yucky discovery of the day
Jul. 6th, 2009 03:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
norsegirlSome weeks ago we'd found a few ants hanging out in dirty dog towels I left on the floor in the laundry room. No biggie, I washed them and put them away and decided no more dirty laundry on the floor. I just figured the ants were attracted to crumbs the beagles had left on their bedding and not leaving it around would solve the problem. We put down an ant bait but didn't see another ant.
This morning I sent Jason down to fetch the clean sheets to change our bed. I'd washed them a few days ago but I just put them in a basket rather than folding them and putting them away as we were going to use them again shortly. The basket of clean laundry was ENTIRELY FILLED with fire ants. After getting bitten a bunch of times he threw the laundry back in the wash (incidentally, fire ants survive the washer, but they do not make it alive through the dryer) and got out the raid and baits. There are now hundreds of dead ants in the laundry room and a steady stream of live ones going to and from the baits. I will vacuum them up later, for now I don't want to disturb the ants bringing the bait back to the colony. It's killing me not to get out the vacuum though.
What I can't get is what attracted them to the fresh, clean laundry? What would be in there that they would want? There's no water, no food, I'm at a loss.
This morning I got lots of stuff done. Most of the upstairs has been vacuumed (didn't get to my closet, the junk room or the games room but I did the rest) and I cleaned the ceiling fan above our bed. It was really gross so that was nice. I've got about 2 hours left before Jason gets home and I'm trying to decide what to tackle next. Vacuum the main floor or clean the kitchen? I really wish I had a self-cleaning house. That would be awesome.
This morning I sent Jason down to fetch the clean sheets to change our bed. I'd washed them a few days ago but I just put them in a basket rather than folding them and putting them away as we were going to use them again shortly. The basket of clean laundry was ENTIRELY FILLED with fire ants. After getting bitten a bunch of times he threw the laundry back in the wash (incidentally, fire ants survive the washer, but they do not make it alive through the dryer) and got out the raid and baits. There are now hundreds of dead ants in the laundry room and a steady stream of live ones going to and from the baits. I will vacuum them up later, for now I don't want to disturb the ants bringing the bait back to the colony. It's killing me not to get out the vacuum though.
What I can't get is what attracted them to the fresh, clean laundry? What would be in there that they would want? There's no water, no food, I'm at a loss.
This morning I got lots of stuff done. Most of the upstairs has been vacuumed (didn't get to my closet, the junk room or the games room but I did the rest) and I cleaned the ceiling fan above our bed. It was really gross so that was nice. I've got about 2 hours left before Jason gets home and I'm trying to decide what to tackle next. Vacuum the main floor or clean the kitchen? I really wish I had a self-cleaning house. That would be awesome.
