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[golden_d]

So I was juuust getting ready to go to bed like 45 minutes ago, and was feeding the cat, when I see an ant emerging from the wall behind her food bowl. And another ant. And another, other ant. And long story short, the cat is shut in the powder room (meowing miserably, and yes, I do feel guilty) and I have bugsprayed* the hell out of the kitchen

Comments

[ms_geekette]

Down with ants!

For our cat food (old house here, so getting rid of ants is fairly impossible) we stick the food bowl on a plate that has a bit of water on it. A middle-sized plate - between a saucer and a dinner plate size, can't remember what it is called. One with a lip or a slight downward slope works best. Of course, it all depends on how big the food bowl is. Ants can't swim all that well, so it does a decent job keeping them out of the food. The downsides are that you will have to keep topping up the water and if your cat is a messy eater, food will get into the water and make it all nasty. Sometimes water will also get everywhere, so I don't rec doing this on carpet.

[golden_d]

Yeah, our house is like 100 years old, so I'm resigned to accepting a certain amount of bugs/mice, but this is actually the first time we've had a significant (i.e., more than just the occasional sighting) ant problem.

between a saucer and a dinner plate size
...salad plate? That's not a bad idea, except we use this kind of bowl, because otherwise she'll eat all her food in one sitting. The problem here arose when the food fell out the sides and against/into the cracks along the baseboards. :(

[ms_geekette]

Ah, maybe a dinner plate might work? Otherwise, you could get a cheapo large plastic serving tray or something if your plates/cookie sheets/shallow baking dishes/whatever are too small to provide a proper "moat".

Ants are pretty tenacious. I think they all follow a trail left by the ants that scout for food. Once those scouts find something, they are pretty quick to let the cavalry know. If the poison doesn't work, you might have wipe down the area with soapy water to get rid of that trail. Something that will disrupt their gravy train. I think all ants *love* cat food. Dry food, wet food...it doesn't matter. The only thing I've found them a bit indifferent to are some types of cat treats.

[golden_d]

Yeah, I'm definitely giving that area a hardcore scrubbing this weekend, and probably an additional spraying. Ugh.