End of the Ant-ocalypse?

(With grateful thanks to my girlfriend for assistance with the title!)

While I haven't seen a single (live) ant inside my home since Tuesday evening, I thought it best to play it safe and call in a professional, to ensure my home is secure against returning ants. Fortunately, the first result in my Google search for such professionals was a company based in London, in whose catchment area I reside. Furthermore, they were able to fit me in this very afternoon, so I was able to quickly arrange a half-day off work so that I'd be home for the visit.

While it happened later than expected, the visit was fairly brief and preparing for the visit highlighted a few things that could possibly do with repairing - such as the gaping hole in the outside wall where the waste pipes come out.

Supposedly, this dusting with power and squeezing of gel at strategic points in my kitchen and bathroom should be enough to keep ants under control for three months, surely enough to get me through the summer.

I say "to keep ants under control" because the measures do not prevent ants returning, they simply ensure that those which return take poison back to the nest... Which might not even be in my flat. The technician told me that they tend to stay near a water source, rather than a food source, so the invasion might be the sign of a leak. Again, this might not even be in my flat.

Still, this is a load off my mind... Hopefully things will start to get back to normal round here.

For a given value of 'normal'.

Round 3

Just a quickie update on the ant situation, since having had to use that spray again seems to have given me a headache... Not the best of days, and it was capped off with about a dozen ant corpses littering my kitchen worktop. There are bits of kitchen equipment with are probably no longer entirely safe to use because I had to start spraying before moving them about, and I've just spent quite a while wiping over the worktops in the corner under the cabinets where they first appeared.

They seem to have come in - this time - via some holes in a bit of cosmetic tiling that covers some of the unsightly pipework from my boiler. Thankfully, I was able to aim the spray behind this panel, so I'm hoping that's another entrance they won't want to use again... but I'm still at a loss as to how they're actually getting in... unless it's from another flat.

If I see too many more ants, I may just call in a professional to scout around... As my mother pointed out, it's kind of unusual for ants to be 'visiting' a top floor flat.

Also, while I think of it, following on from my comment at the end of my last post about possibly not getting a good night's sleep, my fears were not realised. I slept well enough, though one of my dreams was a little odd and featured my erstwhile cyberstalker.

Round 2

And there was me, ready to get on with other stuff this evening... After work, I popped over to Foyles to pick up a birthday present for my father, with a list of shopping in my pocket for last-minute groceries I need for work this week, to pick up once I got back home...

...Then it all started to go terribly, terribly wrong.

It started innocently enough, with a series of three trains being diverted toward Heathrow on the Piccadilly Line. This meant I was about an hour later getting home than I would have been if I'd just come straight home the normal way. No great shakes there, to be honest.

The shopping was easy enough to accomplish but, naturally, I'd not brought a shopping bag with me, so I had to make use of those proffered at checkout. Even that's not a massive disaster, because I can always reuse shopping bags as bin liners.

Where it actually went terribly, terribly wrong was when I cast my eyes sinkwards in my kitchen, for to consider the eternal question of whether to wash up before or after dinner, and saw moving things.

Specifically, ants.

Now, I've been pretty bloody vigilant of late, possibly bordering on the obsessive - constantly checking the floors, walls, ceilings... little cracks and dark corners - looking to ensure that my ant problem is over and to see if there's any sign of where they all came from.

I may have caught a lucky break this evening.

Several of the little critters were congregating around the overflow of the sink, so that got a whole load of ant spray. In the end, I had to wash the entire sink area before I felt comfortable making dinner (even though I had, coincidentally, picked up something that barely needed cooking) and, as I write, I'm eating the dinner I only prepared a few minutes ago.

This does not bode well for a good night's sleep.