(Warning: There is bugs in this post. Specifically ants. There’s also A LOT of cursing.)
I have had a fucking week from hell and I’m just over it. All I want to do is lay down and fucking cry. I have no one to vent to so I hope you will allow me to share here.
Sunday night around midnight, my husband is going to bed and…there’s a fucking invasion of ants in our master bedroom. Couple weeks ago, the apt below us had a swarm in their master bedroom closet.
I need to point out that I have a hardcore phobia of ants. Like, even trying to talk about it gets me all shaky. So needless to say I had a fucking panic attack that night. They were on the floor, the bed, the curtains my fucking pillow – everywhere. I was hyperventilating and sobbing my eyes out and shaking so hard because I was so freaked out.
Meanwhile, my poor husband is trying to kill them, wipe them up, smoosh them, etc and every time he moved something, there were more.
I wound up doing like 6 loads of laundry (they were in the bedding, extra linens, clothes, etc.) and couldn’t even bring myself to sleep in my own bed because I was so freaked out. I was up until 7:30am before I was finally able to doze off for about 3 hours on my couch.
Of course, my apartment complex is made up of fucking assholes. So Monday they were – big surprise – total fucktards about the whole thing. “Do you eat in your bedroom? was their reply.
First off, no I don’t.
Secondly, who the fuck cares because I’m pretty damned sure the people below us don’t eat in their closet so it’s ridiculous for you to act like I somehow brought this on myself!!!
They were absurdly unsympathetic telling me that *I* had to put out traps because they couldn’t for “liability” reasons. Oh and I needed to move every single piece of furniture away from the walls by the so they could spray Tuesday. They couldn’t help me in any way because, of course, of “liability” reasons. I told the property manager I have permanent neck damage so there’s a very low limit to what I can do, and she was like, oh well that’s what you have to do.
So Monday night my husband and I do our best to make sure you can at least get to the baseboards as best as possible. Furniture doesn’t fucking float so there’s only so much it can be moved since we still need to, oh I don’t know, access the bed! The living room is a disaster with overflow of laundry & linens I haven’t put back away and now furniture and things taken out of the room for access.
Tuesday I sit around all day and….pest control doesn’t show! Who’s surprised?
Oh the pest control company had “an emergency” so they’ll be here Wednesday instead. First thing, before noon, promise.
I get up early Wednesday and…wait. By 12:30pm still no sign. So I call. “Oh they’re supposed to be here sometime today, you’re on the list.” Thanks.
Finally come about 2pm. The guy asks if I have any allergies or sensitivities. Uh, yeah to almost everything. Especially scents. (My husband can’t wear cologne because it gives me migraines. Even his stupid deodorant reeks to me. I buy unscented everything.) Oh well, he says, this stuff is horrible. It even gives ME headaches and I don’t have any sensitivities.
And this is what you want to spray in my BEDROOM??
So after all that, he wound up baiting and setting up traps instead, no spray. He said he’d spray outside heavily (which is the problem in the first place IMO since our whole building is swarming in ants. Like, they are everywhere!!)
Meanwhile, my husband has like 30 huge, puss-filled awful bites all over his arms and legs. I have about 4 on my feet since he was one the one right in the mix of it. Apt complex does not give any shits.
We haven’t seen any more since but I’m so nervous now and worried because we never had them before and the just BAM! a ton all at once. They had to come from somewhere and I’m so afraid they’ll be back.
I’m so done with this place and so very, very tired of their bullshit. I wish I could just pack up and leave tomorrow. Of course if we wanted to leave it would be thousands and thousands of dollars in early termination fees and if we just left without 90 days notice, we could never get a place anywhere else ever again. Not like we have the money to move anyway which is why we’ve been stuck here so long in the first place.
It’s just become nearly unbearable and I’m just so damned depressed lately about everything and so overwhelmed. I feel like just laying down and crying. It’s all I want to do. I have no motivation, no energy, nothing. I’m just so done with it all and I’m tired of being powerless and beat up.
Urgh… So sorry to hear that. Could you have stopped with family if they had have sprayed inside? Mind you, then you’ve got the cats and I’m sure that’d be no good for them.
Apart from the ants problem, I hope you’re well… the cats too. Take care.
P.S. – I’m working on a new blog.
Unfortunately, no. My mom only has a small 1 bedroom and my inlaws don’t have a spare bed either. Plus, the cats would have to have come with us and that wouldn’t have been possible. 🙁
I look forward to your new blog!
Have you ever tried Borax detergent? The first apartment my husband and I lived in over 20 years ago was on the second floor and the tenant downstairs liked to put his garbage on his patio, rather than taking it to the dumpster. This resulted in hordes of ants climbing the outside wall and making their way into our apartment. I have allergies and we had cats, so insecticides were a problem. The apartment management was less-than-helpful (I know, shocker) so my husband consulted his grandmother. Apparently, Borax detergent is a natural dessicant to insects and ants won’t cross a line of the stuff. We tried it and it worked like a charm – so much so that it is now the FIRST thing we do when we move into any new place. We pull up the carpet at the wall and pour a line along the base of the wall, then tamp the carpet back down. This works so well that a couple of years ago we had an apartment that looked out on a courtyard. During heavy rains the courtyard flooded and disturbed a huge ant colony that went into all the apartments facing the courtyard – except ours. We had laid the line of Borax down on the inside of our apartment and they didn’t cross it. Borax has a mild detergent smell, but nothing very strong and once the carpet is back down on it you can barely smell it at all. It is also nontoxic to pets and won’t damage the carpet or flooring. I know it would be quite a bit of work to move all your belongings away from the walls to lay down the Borax, but it has worked really well for us for over 20 years. You can get Borax at Target and Amazon also sells it. If you give it a try, I hope it works for you! The other option is to use spray foam insulation and silicone sealer to close off any and all gaps between your apartment and the neighboring apartments, but that only works if you get ALL the gaps. You basically need to run a line of silicone sealer along the bottom of every single wall, corner to corner. That can get really expensive. I’m so sorry you had this happen – it can be tough to live in an apartment where you don’t have control over your environment.
Interesting! I hadn’t heard that. Someone told me to try Diatomaceous Earth in similar fashion around the edges and “seams” of the windows and such and they won’t cross it. If they do, it basically dehydrates their exoskeleton and they die. I guess you can get food grade which can literally be eaten so no worries about toxicity with pets. I think I need to try something to help as a supplement since I can’t have them spray poison in my bedroom and I also can’t have ants. Good info though, thanks!