Abattoir of ants

Or go, go spiders—but not too much

We’ve been in this house just over three years and for three years, we’ve endured invasions of ants in May and June. I do not know why they want to come during the lovely summer months. I’d think there would be more suitable food and water outside, but no. In they come.

And so for three summers—soon to be four—we’ve put down ant hotels and cardboard squares with small dots of Tero on them (but those have to go someplace the cats can’t reach as it’s quite deadly).

It's like nasty sprinkles

This year, we have an unexpected ally as you can see in this photo. That window is on the right side of our fireplace and those black specks on the sill are dead ants. Dead and desiccated, I might add. There’s a spider in the second photo, although I’m not sure you can see him (her?).  Clearly this has been a year of feasting for the spider.

The spider is the bigger blob
in the sort of channel in our
wood paneling. See it?

I also don’t understand why spiders come into the house this time of year.

In addition to the one in the photo, yesterday morning there was a fairly large specimen in the shower with me. Normally they stay put and I give them the evil eye and agree that if they don’t move, I won’t kill them. This one, sadly, felt the need to crawl all over the shower caddy. So I used the attachment on our shower head and washed him right on down the drain.

Goodbye spider!