The General Chat Thread (2024)

This morning my colleague in Manchester asked me if I could hire him a van for today, I asked where did he think I could find one...under a mushroom? time and again we have told them they need to order a few days ahead as the company we use don't keep vehicles hanging around just in case we need one :facepalm:
 
I hate ants. Hate hate HATE them.

Why on earth do they decide that 8pm at night, 3hrs after sunset, that they are going to relocate the colony into the kitchen cupboards?

These horrible things are tiny ants (not termites thankfully) and spent the summer trying to get into the roof of the mudroom. It's a flat roof and apparently they like those because they warm up.... they're about 3mm long maximum.

So at 8pm, I happened to bed a bathroom break and came back via the kitchen to pick up a drink and found them swarming over the main cupboard. Further investigation found then in large numbers in several other cupboards, so only holding empty plastic air tight containers, and some holding jars and all sorts... the entire kitchen cupboards' contents are now out on the floor and every work surface...

I have until 5pm tomorrow to get the place clean and clear of these pests, and cook for guests.

I hate ants! 🐜 🐜 🐜 🐜 🐜 🐜 🐜 🐜 🐜 🐜 🐜 🐜 🐜 🐜 🐜 🐜 🐜 🐜 🐜 🐜 🐜 🐜 🐜 🐜 🐜 🐜 🐜 🐜 🐜 🐜 🐜 🐜 🐜 🐜 🐜 🐜 🐜 🐜 🐜 🐜 🐜 🐜 🐜 🐜 🐜 🐜 🐜 🐜 🐜 🐜 🐜 🐜 🐜 🐜 🐜 🐜 🐜

Now where is that hammer? 🔨 I wonder if I still have that program? You can set the ants walking across your computer screen and blow them away with various weapons or hit them with a hammer or chainsaw. The noises are so realistic! Splat!
 
SatNavSaysStraightOn said:
I hate ants. Hate hate HATE them.
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We usually get two infestations a year, when the weather changes (we’re due one now).

I keep a supply of deadly ant poison, put those little packets out, and I must admit, even though I’m generally a kind soul, I take a certain amount of pleasure in watching the ant traffic go from thousands to hundreds to tens to zero over the course of two or three days.

The hard part is keeping MrsT from intervening and trying to hasten their demise, because the way the poison works, it depends on as many ants as possible carrying it back to the nest, so you have to be patient and just put up with them for a couple of days, then suddenly, they’re no more.
 
We get them and other bugs when we have an extended dry period because they come in looking for water. I hate the rainy season because it seems like the rain hardly ever stops, but at least we don't have bugs then.
 
TastyReuben said:
We usually get two infestations a year, when the weather changes (we’re due one now).

I keep a supply of deadly ant poison, put those little packets out, and I must admit, even though I’m generally a kind soul, I take a certain amount of pleasure in watching the ant traffic go from thousands to hundreds to tens to zero over the course of two or three days.

The hard part is keeping MrsT from intervening and trying to hasten their demise, because the way the poison works, it depends on as many ants as possible carrying it back to the nest, so you have to be patient and just put up with them for a couple of days, then suddenly, they’re no more.
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What brand do you use?
 
TastyReuben said:
I keep a supply of deadly ant poison, put those little packets out, and I must admit, even though I’m generally a kind soul, I take a certain amount of pleasure in watching the ant traffic go from thousands to hundreds to tens to zero over the course of two or three days.
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Sadly this wasn't a trail of ants. Between us finishing our evening meal (6:20pm) when there were one or two exploring but not a trail, just random locations of individual ants in the dining area, and 8pm when I found them, they decided to rehome part of the colony. It was a trail that lead be from 1 part of the swarm to another.

We've had decades of ants swarming, usual inside the house trying to get out. Those are easier to deal with. I just take the vacuum cleaner to them and hoover up some anti-ant powder as well to kill them (something called coopex, we used a different product in the UK).

But I really hate ants. I was badly bitten by them as a kid one time and as such they are about the only things I really loath. Spiders, snakes I'm fine with, even cockroaches, but ants, nope.... I probably moved to the wrong country on that front! Lol. We have so many ant mounds (raised areas of collections of stones) around here. I have a perimeter around the house and any ant activity within that perimeter is eliminated.
 
When I was about 4 years old living in NW Florida, my childhood friend and I wandered into the backyard of a house on the lot next door that was being built. I picked up a piece of plywood and there was a fire ant bed underneath it. Immediately I was covered in ants and ran home screaming. My mother stuck me in the tub with a box of baking soda and the ants were floating off my body, and I was covered in bites. Lucky I wasn't allergic and also that mom was home (my older siblings were home but not sure they would have known what to do). Those things can kill.

So not fond of ants either, but the black ones in my experience don't bite. It's the red ants that'll getcha. All the same, I found a large black ant on my computer desk yesterday and I promptly killed it.
 
JAS_OH1 said:
So not fond of ants either, but the black ones in my experience don't bite. It's the red ants that'll getcha. All the same, I found a large black ant on my computer desk yesterday and I promptly killed it.
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Black ones elsewhere in the world do bite. usually the only thing I find under wooden planks have been rusty nails that have gone straight through my footwear....
 
So this is what we got up to this morning.

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Could have been worse. But it will get worse before we can clean the shelving down...
 
SatNavSaysStraightOn said:
Black ones elsewhere in the world do bite. usually the only thing I find under wooden planks have been rusty nails that have gone straight through my footwear....
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Been there before.

Red ants in Florida are called fire ants and they cause pain when they bite. Black ants might bite here in the USA but they just aren't as aggressive as red ones to my knowledge.
 
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