Floating a fishy idea

Working for a major newspaper like this one, you can't help developing areas of personal expertise. For one person, it might be the history of corruption in the planning sector; for another it might be the who's who of drug-related crime. And so it happened that a female colleague had no doubt where to go recently when she approached my desk and said, in hushed tones: "I believe you know how to get rid of ants."

In fact, as I explained apologetically, this was not entirely true. I know how to get rid of virtual pets all right, as I discovered this week when I remembered to "feed" the tropical "parrot fish" I acquired some months ago with a computer installation, only to turn on the PC and find him floating at the top of his "tank". It had been more than a week since the last "feed", and the slightly shocking truth dawned on me, that my pet "fish" had "died" from "hunger".

At first I was a bit sad. Not so much in the sense of "sorrowful," as in the sense of "needing to get out of the house more". And I actually tried to revive him: frantically double-clicking on his little, lifeless orange body in a scene from a marine version of er.

Then I pulled myself together. These programs are designed for people with a lot of time on their hands, and the fish's demise was a useful reminder that I had a life. One that involved feeding two fully three-dimensional children who, unlike the fish, are equipped with software that ensures you never forget to feed them; not without suffering hearing loss in the process.

But I was talking about exterminating ants. A subject I know at least something about since two years ago, when a colony of the critters moved into our house and, like the worst kind of relatives, stayed all summer. In fact, as other people who've had them will know, they stayed until the so-called "nuptial flight" of August, in which they swarm, and start mating all over the house. (I hate relatives like that).

During the interim, we tried various things to get rid of them. Everything from the old jam-jar trick (you take a jam-jar and hit the ants repeatedly with it), to boiling walnut leaves and leaving the mixture near them, to sprinkling paprika around their points of entry. These last two ideas were my wife's, who has a mainly non-violent approach to insects, and who also thinks that planting mint on the borders between the garden and the house can be a deterrent.

The ants were undeterred, as far as I could see. But my more violent methods weren't much use either; because apparently when the colony notices the number of worker ants dropping, the queens just go into overdrive to produce replacements.

The consolation was learning that ant invasions are not a reflection on the state of your home. As well as being famously organised and hard-working, ants are clean-living creatures who like dry, warm houses and have very specific food needs. Even the best homes can have them, we discovered; Maeve Binchy's, to mention just one.

I'm not betraying any confidences here. Two years ago, while I was writing a column on the problem for these pages, Maeve had unbeknownst to me already written hers on the same subject. It was the sort of organisational mix-up that would never happen in an ant colony, but we couldn't have two antrelated columns in the same supplement, obviously; and equally clearly, mine was the one that had to go. Maeve was a "queen" around here (and still is), and I was only a humble "worker" (worker might be overstating it a bit - Ed), so I wasn't complaining.

Anyway, we never did get to experiment further with ant treatments; because last year, within days of invading the house, our ants disappeared again, not to return that summer. And this year, it has happened again.

The first invaders appeared in our living room on the weekend the clocks went forward, marking the end of winter (I knew ants were organised, but this was ridiculous). They grew in numbers for about a week, although as usual there was no discernible pattern to anything they did; except once when they appeared to be holding a large public meeting, lasting two days, under the television. Maybe it was at this that they decided on a pull-out, but at any rate, soon afterwards, they were all gone.

Which leads me to ask: what's wrong with our home, that it's no longer good enough for ants?

I've analysed the situation and the only major differences from two years ago are that (a) we now have small children and consequently (b) there's half-eaten food everywhere. Could it really be that the ants are, to use a scientific term, "grossed out" by the state of the place? I offer this as a suggestion to others, although I realise that fitting your home with two children under 21 months is not an option for everyone with an insect problem. Calling a pest control company is still probably a more practicable solution for most.

I say all our ants have disappeared. In fact, every now and again, we come across the odd one who hasn't heard that the war is over. I found one on the kitchen sink yesterday, and I suppose I should have let him go - he was no threat, after all.

But killing can be habit-forming. Before I could stop myself, I had reached for the jam jar. And the ant - to paraphrase a popular Mafia expression - is now sleeping with the virtual fish.

Frank McNally can be contacted at: fmcnally@irish-times.ie