Drowning in Ants

So, this is the third and final posting in 'the bug trilogy...'  This morning, I was mortified to see bits of 'stuff' floating around in our half-empty water cooler canister.  I quickly removed it and Tom took on the task of identifying the mystery contents.  Should be no surprise, but it was ants!  Clusters of them, clinging to each other for life - or should it be death?  It's a big deal in India to have your body sent floating down the Ganges when you're dead; maybe our water cooler is the ant equivalent of the Ganges.  Only cleaner.  And in my kitchen in Bangalore.  I'm hoping this possible suicide pact is the end of the ants for the time being.  Watch this space!

Upping the Anti

So, as if German water bugs weren't enough, we are the palatial home to many hundreds of tiny, pinhead size ants, let's call them Indian everywhere ants.  Please don't get the wrong idea that our apartment is home to anything and everything creepy and crawly; I am sure there are much worse things happening elsewhere, and my maid assures me that is the case.  So the Indian everywhere ants are, literally, everywhere.  Their favourite hangout is the black marble kitchen counter-top, the clever little suckers knowing that I can barely see them.  They form weaving lines, dozens at a time, from A to B to C back to B and then into a scarsely visible hole in the wall.  It is a constant battle of wills between me and them; just as quickly as I fill the hole, they create another, and another, coming out of the most creative places to see what tasty treats have been left for them.  A drop of egg yolk on the counter top - their favourite; a small grating of cheese - yummy; and their new favourite challenge, my Origins ginger body scrub in the bathroom!  This week, they have upped the anti.  For several days, there was a trail forming, seemingly going nowhere, and everytime I squished it, it would come back.  Coming home the other evening I was horrified to see hundreds in a clearly defined trail up and around and inside the kitchen cabinet, with some of them even carrying unidentified bits of 'stuff.'  The trail led me to the 'stuff.....'  An unopened, still sealed, plastic bag within a box of Post Cranberry Selects Cereal.  The critters were all over it and, as we found out, all inside it too!  They had managed to gnaw their way in through the box, through the plastic bag, and into the heavenly goodness that is Cranberry Cereal.  At $10 a box here, they clearly chose the most expensive place in the cupboard to live.  But not for long.  They went the way of many of their family and friends - squished under a clorox wipe or sprayed into infinity with yet more toxic noxious probably-not-recommended-in-the-kitchen poison.  I have to say, however, but don't tell them this, that I secretly admire their ingenuity.  They are indeed clever little critters.

Three Bugs Does Not An Infestation Make...

I don't like bugs.  Any kind of bugs.  Large or small.  Foreign or domestic.  Forget it.  I only have to see one and I'm calling Rentokil and preparing to move out of the apartment.  We never got bugs in the UK, just spiders in the bath tub; my first exposure was in NYC where bugs, and sometimes mice, were common place, always a result of 'building works disturbing them from another place in the block...'  I distinctly remember opening my kitchen cupboard one evening to see a lovely little family hanging out on my cans of tuna and promptly trying to kill them with a hammer.  My fuzzy logic was that the hammer was about the same size as the bug; now I realize bigger is better.  I go for a size 10 shoe every time.  This prompted an urgent trip to Gracious Home where I asked the guy behind the counter for something to take care of a 'German water bug infestation.'  In polite society they're water bugs, to you and I, roaches.  When the assistant asked, how many do you have, and I replied disgustedly, three, he and Tom shared a look that basically suggested I was nuts and clearly they must humour me immediately.  The assistant couldn't help but smirk and tell me that 300 would form an infestation; I guess three were just passing through.  Fast forward to India... I found one small 'German water bug' when we moved into this apartment, maybe a hangover from the previous tenant, or just camping out til the new owners arrived.  He was quickly despatched with the size 10.  Eighteen months later, and no sightings inbetween, we come back from a trip away, and there, on my first day back, while slowly adjusting to Indian culture after a month of the western world, was the distant cousin of the first 'German water bug.'  He had to go.  And the next day, another.  Infestation or passing through???  By the end of the week, I'd seen a grand total of three.  My lucky number.  A combination of lethal poisons were brought into the apartment including deadly banned-in-the-USA chalk, whose lines the bugs do not cross, but difficult to use given I didn't know whether they were coming from the inside or outside - was I chalking them in or keeping them out??  Next, 75 cent poison spray with long nozzle for easy access into difficult to reach places.  I sprayed this everywhere and anywhere probably ingesting enough to kill an entire colony of cockroaches, sorry, German water bugs.  No more seen.  Until today.  As our maid unpacked a new box of Kinley bottled water, there they were, about a dozen, in the bottom of the box, kicking back and waiting to be delivered to a new home.  The box was removed to the stairwell where I instructed the maid to squash and remove all sign of them NOW!  'Now' is an interesting concept in India which ranges from somewhere in the next hour to sometime in the next millennium.  The scream of my 'NOW' left the maid in no doubt that I wanted it done in the next hour - or sooner.... She did make me feel MUCH happier when she told me that all the other apartments she sees have bugs in them - ours was the only one that didn't.  My good friend Karen also kindly pointed out that the boxes of water were brought home in the car.... great, now I have housebound AND traveling German water bugs!  This afternoon's project for our driver?  A complete clean out and disinfection of the car, equipped with a can of toxic spray.  It's a dirty job, but someone's gotta do it.  And I'm BUGgered if it's me!!!