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Confession...

SWBs WifeySWBs Wifey
in Eco-Friendly Family

One of my least EF addictions is being fed today...

My exterminator is coming.  I cannot live without my exterminator in my life.  We went a few months without when we first bought the house and ants literally took over our house- in our furniture, an inch deep in our closet... what we thought was tightly closed food would be ant food in just a day or so (remembers what the bread looked like with thousands of ants all over it... ::shudder::)

Turns out our neighborhood had builders that thought it would be A-OK to toss soda bottles/cans, snack remnants, candy bar wrappers, fast food bags and the like INTO the walls of homes when they were sealing them up.  That, coupled with the weather and climate here= LOTS of ants.  DH and I have tried everything we can to naturally keep them away.  Nothing has ever worked.  So the bug man is coming today.  He doesn't spray in our room or the baby's room and only on the edges of the floor everywhere else.  When I talked to him about my concerns over the poisons, he was really understanding and explained a few things to me (nothing in depth because I'm not a chemist by any stretch of the imagination), so I feel a little more comfortable with our decision to keep him on... and a little less guilty... Plus- he's super nice!  Someone else tell me I'm not a terrible person!

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Re: Confession...

  • renee143renee143 member

    i have one session left in my contract, but then i'm looking into the more "green" services.

    i couldn't deal w/ the big roaches we have here in the south, and the black widow i killed in the nursery tipped the scale.  we only have it applied outside, but it makes a huge difference.  i can't give it up entirely either.

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  • kmgourleykmgourley

    You're not a terrible person!  I believe you're in GA?  Me too.  I don't know if we have food in our walls, but we definitely get ants.  It's not as bad as you've described, but I totally understand the frustration.  Sometimes you just have to do what you have to do!

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  • greenlivingmamagreenlivingmama
    If I had ants like that I would use one too. Don't feel bad. We had a small ant problem and I did a eco friendly repellent and it seems to be working but we didn't have that many. Plus my neighbors on both sides used poison, so that may have helped.
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  • julygaljulygal
    We have a contract that they come quarterly.  They only come inside if there is a problem.  Otherwise they just do the exterior of the house.  Considering we live on an anthill we have only had ants once (just recently) since starting the contract 2 years ago.  I can't stand the swarm of ants either.
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  • SWBs WifeySWBs Wifey
    Thanks, ladies.  Hopefully he'll be here early- I'm ready to go back to bed!  He usually comesin the afternoons, but last time and this time he's scheduled morning appointments.  Last time I literally rolled out of bed to let him in and he said, "Looks like you're under the weather."  I was like... "No... I just plan to go back to bed when you leave."  It will probably be even worse today.  I got up when DH left so that I could eat some breakfast and get the brisket in the crock pot for dinner... but as soon as he's gone- I'm going back to sleep.  (I slept pretty well last night, but EVERY time I woke up, I was having a pretty good contraction- part of me was hoping they'd get closer together when I woke up... oh well... I still have Thursday!)
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  • SWBs WifeySWBs Wifey

    imagejulygal:
    We have a contract that they come quarterly.  They only come inside if there is a problem.  Otherwise they just do the exterior of the house.  Considering we live on an anthill we have only had ants once (just recently) since starting the contract 2 years ago.  I can't stand the swarm of ants either.

    I can't go more than one appointment (we have one every 2 months) without an inside treatment.  They come up through the dishwasher (or around it, maybe?) and make me crazy!  I tried to only do the outside thing while I was in school (since I was never home during the day to let him in) and it would get bad FAST.  After a callsto the company that I couldn't be home for day appointments, he started scheduling them late in the afternoon or when I had company in town so that he could get in at least every other time.  After talking to my neighbors (with other companies... or the same company with a different guy), I am SUPER lucky.  They all pay more than twice as much and are charged for mid-cycle appointments (I'm not- I make a call if I see one too many creepy crawlies and he comes back to check it out- even if he was just here the week before). 

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  • TCsbrideTCsbride member
    We live by a lot of woods and then we have several "under development" neighborhoods behind ours, so with the combination of those two, we seem to get a ton of spiders. Pretty much any other bug (although not the amount of ants you suggested) I can handle, but not spiders. We tried to go without and just killing them as we saw them, but when DS got a spider bite on his cheek I said enough was enough. DH sprays everything himself, so he makes sure it's as far away from the kid stuff as possible, but we are looking for an in between solution. The EF ways didn't work and yet I hate the spray even though it says it's fine. Ughhh.... 
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