When I got home from work Friday I was greeted by a slew of ants crawling in my cats' food dish and all over the place mat under it. This was very distressing to me. I wish I could have gotten a picture of all those ants that I came home to, but unfortunately, my digital camera battery died that morning when I tried taking a picture of Manny lying in my wardrobe closet. I grabbed up the dish and squished those little tiny ants as they crawled around in the dish. Every time I stirred it up, I saw some more!!! By the time I got them all and went back to the place mat, most of them were gone but I did get some. I knew I couldn't spray anything like RAID around in the house because it would hurt my cats. I decided to go to my friends on the Internet through Twitter but didn't get any help there. Then I remembered about http://answers.yahoo.com. You can search for a question and if someone has asked it before, chances are there's several answers to it. Sure enough, other people had the same problem and I found a great answer byKatslookup--not suspended yet.
She said to spray Home Defense around the OUTSIDE of the house, windows, doors, down spouts but also place the bowl inside a larger dish filled with water so there is a moat around the cat's food bowl. Ants can't swim so won't be able to get to it! She said after they realize the food source is no longer available, they will leave.
So, I went looking for a slightly bigger bowl I could use and guess where I found one. In the basement storage closet from among some of the good China that belonged to my parents which we never use. Well, I dug out one of the soup bowls and after killing the spider that was in it and cleaning it up, it worked perfectly. The cats food dish is a good China bowl that belonged to Gerard's parents. (Nothing but the best for our cats!) Anyhow, it works! There have been no ants crawling in the food since, just some on the mat around the bowl now and then which I promptly squish with my fingers.
Can you guess where we went first thing Saturday morning? At 8 a.m. we went up to RiteAid for the RAID. Then Gerard went to the gym and library while I learned football drills for coaching sports camp, then we went hunting for a new battery for my digital camera, finally finding one at Best Buy after trying Radio Shack and OfficeMax with no success. Whew, what a relief! What would I do without my camera to take pictures for my blog posts? We ate lunch at Arby's and then played two sets of tennis at Elmwood Park. After all that, I was just too tired to do it so waited until yesterday to spray.
Have you ever used Yahoo Answers find a solution to a problem? You might want to give it a try. What do you use your good China for?
(For Spunky Doodle's post about this, click here.
7 comments:
When we had ants, we got something called "The Antster." It's a raised platform with a moat inside that you fill with water and a drop or two of liquid dishwashing soap. It works great!
That's too funny. If we ever had to do that though our kitty would just spill all the water out of the moat. He knocks his water dish over every other day sticking his paw in there and playing with it. Dum dum.
I ran into this problem when I first moved to Florida and was horrified. Thanks for the great advice on ways to deal w/ this. For now we are getting the outside of our house sprayed. hope all is well with you!
Daisy, I never heard of an "Anster." For now, my little saucer and soup bowl are working fine.
The Bumbles: I'm surprised Spunky hasn't tried playing in that water or taking a drink from there, but so far, so good! She likes playing in the water too but we hae a heavy water bowl that she can't knock over.
Maria: I'm finding out that quite a few people have this problem. Glad I could help.
Sprinkle parsley flakes around the food dish--Ants hate parsley flakes. Although the cats might think it is catnip and eat it--but it can't hurt them. It's worth a try.
Lin: Thanks for this suggestion. I'll keep it in mind, but don't think I will be buying any parsley just for this--so far, the moat is working.
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