The ants came marching one by one...

Ants have invaded my home. Well, my kitchen and laundry room to be exact.

This isn't the first time we've had to deal with ants, over the 12 years we've lived here we have probably had 3 or 4 kitchen invasions. And I'm sure it won't be the last, seeing as that we live out in the country and our house is pretty old and not exactly impenetrable to insects. But this is certainly the worst case to date. 

Usually it starts with just a few on the counter. I'll follow their little trail to some miniscule crack or cranny, lay out little cardboard squares with Terro (best sugar ant bait ever), and watch with glee as the ants discover and gobble up the liquid and carry it back to wherever they came from - killing the colony and leaving me ant free again after just a couple of days - a week, max. 

This time, the ants showed up on the floor, in random places throughout my kitchen and laundry room, and it took me two days to figure out where they were coming in. And when I did, late yesterday afternoon, the ants on my floors had multiplied substantially, which made sense when I found not a single-file line marching in, but a freakin' eight-lane highway. 

Instant GROSS OUT. 

But I knew just bug-spraying and killing the pests wouldn't take care of the problem in the long run so I laid out about 8 little cardboard squares of Terro between the two rooms, banned my children from entering them, and then we left for the evening to go watch Russ's summer league basketball games, where I blissfully forgot all about my little ant problem. 

Until I came home to discover what appeared to be 500 ants swarming my bait squares and the rest of my kitchen and laundry. Apparently word got out quick and an entire ant city moved in.

It was at this point that I said, "forget the long run", put my kids to bed, and used about 1/2 a can of Raid to spray every single inch of those two room's floors, plus the entire outside wall of that side of the house. Then I waited 20 minutes, swept them all up, and mopped my floors with Pine-Sol until 10:00 pm.

Nothing like the worst case of the heebie-jeebies you've ever had to kick-start a good house scrubbing.

Next thing you know I was vacuuming, doing laundry, and clean-sweeping my children's dresser tops while they slept (sadly, a chore that needs to be done on a weekly basis). 

Who knows what will get accomplished today if I catch sight of even one single little ant on the premises - I'm on a warpath!