⚡ October 9, 2017
The Daily Meal 🐜
Ironically, or as luck would have it, my last piece about the ants has proven to be terribly prescient. It all started a couple of weeks ago when I took my usual approach toward blaming/not blaming Bill for any mess in the kitchen. He likes to cook and he snacks a lot. This first little mess, I thought, was obvious. It had the powdery consistency and yellow-brownish color of the fine meal at the bottom of a Cheerios bag.
So, it was obvious: he upturned the bag to get the last of the good bits into his bowl and the powdery mess had fallen onto the front of the cabinet doors in the base of the center island. No problemo. His eyesight isn’t the greatest and he’d never see this, so I wiped it up with a wifely snick-snack that I kept to myself.
Well, the next morning it was back there again, and since there were no cereal boxes in the trash, it seemed odd that he was finishing yet another box and he’s supposed to severly restrict his carbs. Two cereals in a row seemed amiss, so I wiped it up and made a mental note to check on his latest breakfasts when next we spoke.
He had no idea what I was talking about and the next day the splatters of meal were back on the tops of the doors and Bill was clearly not to blame. Eventually, after more of the countertop began to feel powdery, it occurred to me to look up. Our kitchen ceiling is a series of wooden planks, painted. Above it is our bedroom floor, carpeted in the middle over hardwood. Hmmmmm.
I think we might have something actually gnawing, gnawing at the house. I’ve put out ant traps, very reluctantly, but I hope the ants are smart enough to avoid them, if they are not the gnawers. I’ve put 20 Mule Team borax under the carpet in the hopes they eat it and dehydrate quietly. It’s the bedroom, after all. 🐔