Dorli had told me stories about the amazing ants in Sri Lanka. She
had lived in the district center for a year in 2009.
At that time, she had had some German chocolate in her apartment and a horde of ants found their way up to the fourth floor or wherever her apartment was and invaded the package of chocolate. She cleaned all of the ants from the chocolate, sealed it into a ziplock baggie and hung it from a clothesline in her bedroom.
The next day she came home to find that the ants had formed a line that crawled across the floor, up the wall, along the clothesline, ATE through the ziplock baggie and were swarming inside, devouring the chocolate. She said they had also gotten all through her zipped luggage and she had had to take everything out and then leave the empty suitcase open in the sun on the ground outside until all the ants wandered out.
With all the warnings about the incredible ants of Sri Lanka, I was not prepared for this to happen to me in Nepal. When Dorli and I went to the mountainous area in Nepal, after the training was done, we left our big suitcases at the hotel where we’d stayed that week for the training, and took only our backpacks with us. The people at the hotel left our suitcases sitting in the reception area, which was open to the outside.
When we returned from the mountains and opened our suitcases, they were full of very tiny red ants.
The interesting thing was where the ants congregated in my suitcase. I had a package of sugar candy — open — tucked among my clothes. There were only 2-3 ants on that. There were, however, hundreds of ants milling around in the laptop I’d brought from the office. They were all over the keyboard and down inside among the keys. I guess they were eating all the crumbs and bits of dead skin that had fallen below the keyboard. No matter how many ants I swiped off the top of the computer, more continued to emerge and crawl around the keyboard and screen for the next 4-5 days. Just when I’d think they were all gone, more popped out.
The other thing they got into was a Ziplock baggie of Wet Wipes. There were hundreds of ants inside the Ziplock bag. They somehow smelled the wet, soapy wipes, ate through the plastic and were eating the wipes. I threw the whole package away. In doing that, I removed most of the ants from my suitcase and found very few after that. I was glad they weren’t all through every item in my suitcase. They had congregated on the computer and in the Ziplock baggie.
Dorli had a bigger infestation because she had had food in her suitcase and they had gotten into most of that so she had to throw most of it away.
In spite of all the warnings about ants in Sri Lanka, I did not have a problem with them in the district center there in Colombo.
At that time, she had had some German chocolate in her apartment and a horde of ants found their way up to the fourth floor or wherever her apartment was and invaded the package of chocolate. She cleaned all of the ants from the chocolate, sealed it into a ziplock baggie and hung it from a clothesline in her bedroom.
The next day she came home to find that the ants had formed a line that crawled across the floor, up the wall, along the clothesline, ATE through the ziplock baggie and were swarming inside, devouring the chocolate. She said they had also gotten all through her zipped luggage and she had had to take everything out and then leave the empty suitcase open in the sun on the ground outside until all the ants wandered out.
With all the warnings about the incredible ants of Sri Lanka, I was not prepared for this to happen to me in Nepal. When Dorli and I went to the mountainous area in Nepal, after the training was done, we left our big suitcases at the hotel where we’d stayed that week for the training, and took only our backpacks with us. The people at the hotel left our suitcases sitting in the reception area, which was open to the outside.
When we returned from the mountains and opened our suitcases, they were full of very tiny red ants.
The interesting thing was where the ants congregated in my suitcase. I had a package of sugar candy — open — tucked among my clothes. There were only 2-3 ants on that. There were, however, hundreds of ants milling around in the laptop I’d brought from the office. They were all over the keyboard and down inside among the keys. I guess they were eating all the crumbs and bits of dead skin that had fallen below the keyboard. No matter how many ants I swiped off the top of the computer, more continued to emerge and crawl around the keyboard and screen for the next 4-5 days. Just when I’d think they were all gone, more popped out.
The other thing they got into was a Ziplock baggie of Wet Wipes. There were hundreds of ants inside the Ziplock bag. They somehow smelled the wet, soapy wipes, ate through the plastic and were eating the wipes. I threw the whole package away. In doing that, I removed most of the ants from my suitcase and found very few after that. I was glad they weren’t all through every item in my suitcase. They had congregated on the computer and in the Ziplock baggie.
Dorli had a bigger infestation because she had had food in her suitcase and they had gotten into most of that so she had to throw most of it away.
In spite of all the warnings about ants in Sri Lanka, I did not have a problem with them in the district center there in Colombo.
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