HEIDI AND THE ANTS.

In most American cities, when a tenant tells his landlord that he has ants in his kitchen, it is usually because he wants the landlord to kill them, but this is Berkeley where things are different. I was just reviewing a series of emails that I got several years ago from a tenant who had ants in her kitchen and wanted me to get rid of them – but without harming them. I think you might enjoy reading this exchange. Here are some of the emails I received from her about this subject. There were more emails about this from her, but I can’t find them all. I changed her name in the letters below. Her name wasn’t actually Heidi. My stepmother had a dog named Heidi, but I never had a tenant named Heidi.

Dear Mark:
The ants are back. I have tried everything, but nothing works. I have even tried yelling at them.
Heidi

Dear Heidi:
I have been meaning to talk to you about this for some time. I know that you have been yelling at the ants in your kitchen. I can hear you from my office. However, yelling “Get out! Get out!” at ants doesn’t work. I don’t know if ants have ears, but I am sure that they don’t understand English. I will come over and spray something in your kitchen to get rid of them.

Dear Mark:
Will this spray kill the ants?
Heidi

Heidi:
Yes. I use a product that is made from the oil of orange peels. It is not harmful to people, but it destroys the respiratory system of ants and other insects. They die quickly because they can’t breathe.
Mark

Dear Mark:
I don’t want you to do that. That sounds awful. How would you feel if you couldn’t breathe? Let me think about this for a while. I was hoping you had a spray that would just keep the ants away, like mosquito repellent keep mosquitoes away.
Heidi

Dear Heidi:
I don’t have ant repellent. I don’t even know if such a product exists. I use orange peel oil because it is non-toxic to people and safe to use in restaurants and home kitchens. However, this product does kill ants. I doesn’t just repel them.
Mark

Dear Mark:
I need time to think this over. Please don’t do anything until I say so.
Heidi

Dear Heidi:
OK. Think it over. I will spray or not spray your kitchen as you wish. There are many products on the market that will kill or repel ants, but I don’t know of any, aside from orange peel oil, that are safe to use in a kitchen or around food. I have investigated this matter.
Mark

Dear Mark:
I found 6 more dead ants in my kitchen this morning. I found 4 dead ants in my kitchen yesterday. Did you spray that stuff in my kitchen? I don’t think there is anything in my kitchen that would kill ants. I found most of the ants on the top of the sink near the soap. Do you think the ants might have eaten the soap and died? Is soap poisonous to ants? If it is, do you know of a brand of soap that won’t kill ants if they eat it.
Heidi

Heidi:
I did not spray your kitchen. You told me not to. Frankly, I think it is silly for you to worry about the health of the ants in your kitchen. You have probably killed hundreds of ants by just walking on the grass in your yard.
Mark

Dear Mark:
Wow! I have been thinking about what you said about walking on ants in the yard. You are probably right. It makes you wonder if it is OK to walk in the yard. I have been taking the ants in my kitchen outside and putting them in the yard, but I don’t know if that’s the right thing to do. It is depressing, but I know you are right. I am now taking the ants to the back porch and dropping them off into the yard. Some of them may get hurt in the fall, but that’s better than walking on other ants in order to save the kitchen ants. Don’t you think? What do you think I should do?
Heidi

Heidi:
Do whatever you think is best.
Mark

Dear Mark:
I asked my mother for her advice about the ants. She thinks that trying to save ants is stupid. She says that she kills ants all the time. My mother thinks that I have too much time on my hands. She says that instead of trying to save the ants in my kitchen that I should come over to the church today and help her make brownies for gift baskets for our very old members. What do you think?
Heidi

Dear Heidi:
I agree with your mother. If you change your mind and want me to spray your kitchen, let me know.
Mark

Dear Mark:
Would you like some brownies? My mother and I made a lot of them today at the church for gift baskets. We made too many of them. They are very good. If you want to spray my kitchen, go ahead. I have lost interest in the ants.
Heidi

In any other city in the U.S., a tenant like Heidi would be considered bizarre, perhaps even unbelievable, but nobody who has lived in Berkeley for a long time would be surprised by a story like this. Landlords in Berkeley have to deal with tenants like Heidi all the time. When inexperienced Berkeley landlords ask me for advice, I tell them that the key to successfully dealing with someone like Heidi is patience, lots and lots of patience. – Mark Tarses

Ants! Part 2

I had an article in last month’s tenant newsletter about ants. A couple of people emailed me afterward asking if there was some way of getting rid of ants without pesticides. I have been asked that before, but sorry, I really don’t know of any effective way to do that. Ants lay down a chemical trail when they find food. Other ants can follow that trail – and for a considerable time and distance from their nest. One method of controlling ants that I know doesn’t work is yelling at them. A few years ago, I had a tenant who tried that. She lived in the house next door to me. I could sometimes hear her yelling at the ants in her kitchen: “Get out! Get out!” A neighbor living in the apartment house on the other side of her once called the police because of this. He thought my tenant was being physically attacked, but when the police arrived, my tenant explained to them that she was OK and that she was just yelling at the ants in her kitchen. I am sorry that I wasn’t there. I would have liked to have seen the expressions on the faces of those policemen when my tenant told them that she was yelling at the ants in her kitchen. However, this is Berkeley, so it is quite possible that those policemen were not surprised by this explanation.

Ants!

 
This is ant season in the San Francisco bay area. Everybody’s got them, including me. Why are ants such a problem at this time of year? First of all, it’s the rainy season, and ants don’t like to get wet. Like you and me, ants cannot breathe under water. Ants would prefer to be in a dry place, like your apartment, rather than a wet ant nest. Ants also don’t like to get cold. In winter, they would prefer to be in a warm place, like your apartment rather than a cold ant nest. Ants are amazing and resourceful creatures, which explains why they have been on Earth, essentially unchanged, for millions of years. Ant nests are complex and wonderfully engineered structures. Ant nests have chambers that are warmer than the outside air, they have food storage, sleeping, and nursery chambers, and they build drainage systems throughout their nests to take away rain water from the chambers in which they live.

So, how do you get rid of ants? First of all, you must take away their source of food. As long as ants can get to an easy meal in your apartment, you will never get rid of them. Ants can get into cabinets, closed boxes, and garbage cans. They have no difficulty climbing up walls and kitchen cabinets. If you have ants, put your food in containers that they cannot get into. For example, transfer breakfast cereal from boxes to jars with tight fitting lids, zip lok bags, or store the cereal in your refrigerator. Take out your kitchen garbage frequently. Keep your floors and countertops free of food. A stale crust of bread can feed a whole colony of ants for a week, and the whole colony will come to get it.

OrangeGuardSecond, spray places where you see ants with Orange Guard. This product can be hard to find in stores, so if you don’t have it, come to me, and I will give you a free bottle. Most brands of ant killer contain worrisome chemicals, like arsenic. Orange Guard is the only ant killer approved for use by the state health department for use in restaurant kitchens. That is because it is non-toxic, at least non-toxic to people. The active ingredient is orange peel oil, which is very toxic to insects. Oranges produce this oil in their peels in order to prevent insects from boring through to get the juice inside. Orange Guard kills ants instantly, and any ant that crosses an area that you previously sprayed with it will die immediately. Your apartment will smell like oranges for a day or two after you use the product, but your ants will quickly disappear.