I've had ants come inside looking for water (clusters of them around droplets in the sink) when it's dry and escaping water when it's wet. I've also had them eat my soap. my mom has had to keep her sugar in the freezer to keep the ants out of it (once they get into the sugar, putting it in the freezer only stuns them, they wake back up when they thaw out) but they effectively drown in flour - they'll crawl into the canister for whatever reason and die, so you just have to sift their little bodies out.

I've also heard that having ants makes it less likely you'll have roaches, as the first somehow keep the second away. If those are the choices, I'll take ants.

I have neither right now, through no action of my own. My landlord and neighbor might spray. We do have a lot of lizards, that might explain it.

We do have a lot of lizards, that might explain it.

Ooooh, I'd take lizards over ants and roaches. Lizards are nifty.

I vastly prefer the lizards. Poor things keep losing their tails to the cats, and we occasionally find little lizard mummies under the furniture, but they manmage to maintain a pretty sizable population.

If those are the choices, I'll take ants.

I'd prefer roaches. Easier to kill. Once either one gets into the food, it's over. But I've never had roaches in my fridge, nor in my dishwasher.

I find roaches intrinsically more digusting than ants. I'm trying to justify that rationally, and coming to the conclusion that I can't.

Robin, I'm so glad your neice is getting the help she needs.

Nora, insent.

I'm caught up. Hugs and hairpats to those who want them, and back to work for me.

Wandering ants can really get themselves in trouble if they aren't careful. A horde of them wandered into my car once, they shorted out the radio. Until they started dying, shriveling up and falling off. It took a few weeks, but the radio started working again. Except for when I drove over the railroad tracks right outside work. Then, whatever poor little ant carcass was still in the radio would short it out and the signal would crackle in and out until I was back on smooth pavement. That lasted about a year before the dead ant either blew away or something else in the radio ate it.

Goodness, SailAweigh. I'm picturing such a wee steampunk existence for the ants in your car. All hot and noisy, with death one wire away.

I want someone to make an animated film about this.

I know! I'd never had ants get in a car before. It was the strangest thing. And I had no idea how to get rid of them, but they seemed to find their own method of mass destruction so I just left them to it.

I've never had ants in my car. Once I had just started to drive to work and a cat popped up from inside the hatchback.