Ants

Apartments and houses are easy to find in Kaohsiung, but trying to find one that is within an economy based priced range, that is nice and of a decent size is rather more difficult. My search for this current apartment lasted a few months, having along the way discarded many a dwelling for reason of economy or size or both!

The previous apartment that my wife and I lived in failed us for the long term for a variety of reasons. It was cheap but suffered from a variety of other reducing factors ranging from its extremely noisy location (school opposite, vendors selling their wares and from everyday life outside) to mosquitoes that hounded us day in day out. Many a night we would wake up and spend an hour or two hunting down the little insects and then sinking back to sleep only to have failed in our mission.

This apartment was a stroke of luck. An amazing stroke of luck or so it seemed at the time. It was large and it was cheap, it was quiet and it was mosquito free. It came complete with furnishings, a security guard downstairs, two bathrooms, extra bedrooms and all that we could want and more. And as an added bonus no cockroach had been seen near the apartment for over six months.

After nearly six months the apartment has lived up to everything that was advertised and that we saw in it when we signed the lease form, except for one feature. A feature that had not been previously thought about, discussed or mentioned by the previous tenants, the landlord or ourselves. A feature that only came to life once we had settled in and had grown to love the place.

Ants!

Ants have been driving us crazy. They have been driving us up the wall and recently I have become irritable and edgy as they play on my nerves, morning, noon and night. I for the life of me can not understand everything that is happening in this apartment. I lived with ants on the Islands of Tuvalu for two years, lived with them in peace and accepted them as an everyday part of my life. Yes, they ate my food and ruined anything if left unattended but never for one moment did they cause me heartache or give me ideas of moving on!

It started off gently at first! Just a couple of ants working their way into the kitchen cupboards and invading a jar of peanut butter or a packet of flour. No problem at all and a quick wipe and a throw away of the damaged product would end the episode for a few days or more.

Then it started to get worse. We found in one day that ants were breeding in the rice pot, had eaten away at some jelly powder and were busy picking away at some plastic in preparation for total invasion of a packet of walnuts.

My wife and I spent weeks fighting this onslaught by buying endless jars and sealed containers, by placing elastic bands around bottles and table legs (I was told that they do not like elastic bands) and by spraying insecticide, even though I hate the stuff. We fought and battled against the chains of little legs till out fingers and knees ached. And it looked as if we where getting somewhere, that our endeavors where paying off. All our hard work looked as it was bearing fruit and no longer would I open the cupboard and see thousand of ants happily working their way through our food items.

These ants are just your typical household ants. Small and brown with lots of legs and they dont bite.

It looked as if we had the situation under control and that we could return to normal. I went around the kitchen and filled in hundreds of little holes in the grouting between the tiles, secured the windows as to be airtight and made sure that every scrap of food was safe in airtight containers. And they went away, for days we had no ants at all and both of us started to relax. We even considered holding an "ant party" to herald out new freedom.

Then bang it all fell apart. My wife was at work and I was busy correcting an article or something at the coffee table in the sitting room. The first thing that woke me up to a possible problem was when I noticed two or three ants scurrying across the paper that I was correcting at the time. I brushed them off and continued, assuming that these ants were strays and that all was okay. Later on I happened to look down and see thousands more under my feet. I had been sitting there squashing them unawares for an hour or so and they scampered around intent on picking away at something that I could not see.

Well, I got up calmly and being a professional ant hunter followed the line to try and find the source. I crawled on my hands and knees for ages gently moving furniture and lifting mats in my hunt for the nest. But however hard I looked I could get nowhere and I ended up fetching the cloth out and wiping up the trail and the mess that had been left behind; without having found the source. Not visibly upset or worried I put this occurrence down to a one-off and I opted to return to my computer in the other room and continue my good work of writing.

This was when it really started to annoy me. There I was (like now) tapping away at my computer when an ant casually walked across the very keyboard that I was using. And another poked its head out from the coffee cup that I had recently emptied and looked at me as if to say, "you can run but you cannot hide". Upon investigation I found that I had ants inside my scanner, squashed in-between the pages of my book and running riot of my printed articles. An infestation of the creatures either having found something worthwhile to eat, where thinking of setting up shop or had taken it upon themselves to attack me.

Again I did the most sensible thing and this time I managed to locate the source. I found the source, sprayed it full of insect killer and then filled it up with cement. Then I cleaned my desk of all evidence of their stay and congratulated myself on a job well done, also thankful that I would not be seeing that bunch of annoyances again.

Life was great just then. I had found the source, killed them all cleaned the apartment and upon checking not an ant was to be found anywhere. Life looked good and the future promises even better.

The following morning my wife was up and preparing to leave for work. I, still with sleep in my eyes, got up to say goodbye and to watch the latest news on the television. My typical routine: one that would normally be followed by a cup of coffee and the start to my lazy day. As per usual I got out of bed, went into the main room and picked up the towel from the chair my morning towel that I laze around in. I picked it up off the chair and wrapping it securely around my waste. I walked with eyes still half closed to my wife who was just about to depart for the day.

It was at that point that I screamed out in agony as some sharp, needle like pains, hit me around my legs and private parts. Hit me around the area that was covered in the towel that I had picked up from the chair.

Screaming, I ripped the towel off from around my waist and my wife rushed towards me wandering what on earth was happening.

Upon investigation we found that thousand of ants had decided to go on tour around my towel. And not only were there thousands of them they were the biting type to boot. You know: those little biting ants that are generally smaller than the normal type and they look sleeker and crueler as well? And they, once finding themselves against my skin decided to bite every part of it as quickly as they possibly could. My wife comforted me and helped me to rub some cream on my wounds but she had to go to work and left soon after.

I meanwhile threw the infested towel into the washing machine, grabbed a large spray can of insecticide and prepared to go to all out war on my tormentors. I searched that apartment from top to bottom, I looked in every nook and cranny and I filled hole after hole with cement. I went on the roof and over turned every loose stone and inspected every crack in the cement till my knees were raw and my brain fuzzy. I did everything that it was possible for one human to do in a quest to exterminate every ant within sight of that apartment. I did everything possible and although I did not feel that it would last long I did think that I could now keep them under control.

That evening I opened up a new jar of apple pie mix to add to the pastry that my wife had just prepared only to find that it was half gone. Half gone and a trail of ants leading to it.

My wife and I are looking for a new apartment now. They have beaten us and I will be the first to admit it. We get some funny looks from prospective landlords when we ask about ants and if they have any. They all say "no" to our questions but whenever I look around the possible apartment I always see one or two of the creatures in action.

We are still looking.