Learned something new today. It cost me and the (pregnant) wife a night spent in a really hot, un-air-conditioned house, plus about a $120 repair bill. But hey, education is priceless, right?
Apparently, ants like to swarm on metal, and that's not my clever way of describing their behavior at loud music festivals. I'm talking about thousands (a careful guesstimate) piling onto the metal contacts inside electrical equipment until their little corpses clog up said contacts and the device in question stops working.
Exhibit A is at right. It's not a great picture, but if you look closely you can see a lot of little ant bodies packed inside this contraption, an electrical contact that the repairman just removed from my outdoor A/C unit.
Now, I don't know whether the ants in my air conditioning unit technically qualify as crazy ants. The repairman didn't say, and I did not conduct a psychiatric evaluation. But apparently my electrical equipment is not the only enticing variety. Even NASA's Johnson Space Center is reported to be watching out for the little twits.
Allegedly, there is an odor created when the silver electrical contacts arc, and the scent appeals to the ants' pheromones. This is according to the A/C repairman, so it must be true.
Moral of the story: when you're looking for ant beds to poison around your house, check for little troops marching around and into your air conditioning unit. Then, kill them. Also, the repairman warns me, you'll need to keep going back and killing them over and over.
The good news is: The cold air, she's a blowin, Brother John, Brother John. That's an old Appalachian spiritual, isn't it? Yes, I'm confident it is.
11 comments:
I'm just going to pipe in here and say if it's bizarre and has to do with the AC unit, it happens at our house. This is the third July since we've been at this house (and we've been there three years) that something has gone wrong with the AC and we are left in misery. Thankfully it was only for one night. One year, it was for a week and a half...
If your wife weren't pregnant I'd really give you a hard time about suffering through one measly little night without artificially cooled air.
But hey, we all know I've got a little Africa in my blood so maybe heat affects me less than the average person. (Good thing too, seeing as France is A/C free. Nothing like walking into a hot, muggy doctor's office or pharmacy!)
Best of luck murdering any remaining ants that dare tread on your walls.
Ahhh! Ants like that totally freak me out! I'm glad y'all got rid of the little suckers!
Heh. Fair enough, Kari. We are addicted to the A/C, I suppose.
The night actually wasn't as bad as I expected it to be. The ceiling fan overhead worked wonders.
I have to point out that we even had a fan on the dogs. They are, after all, covered in hair...
You should try living beyond the reach of municipal water supplies when the damn things set up shop. I have trouble bearing heat but try having to shower at a neighbor's house because the ants killed your pump.
And this is more common with some species than others. Luckily fireants don't do this so much, which is about their only positive quality other than giving topographers something to do with maps of the area. After all, their mounds are by far the highest point in the geography of the area.
Blecchh. I had no idea ants were attracted to A/C units. Glad you got rid of them and got everything working quickly.
Also, I hate the word "guesstimate." Just sayin'.
Yeah, "guestimate" is not a word.
Ants can suck it.
Guesstimate, guesstimate, guesstimate.
There. It's out of my system.
Unrelated to this post...
You've been Premio-ed.
http://jkmassonfrance.blogspot.com/2008/08/and-award-goes-to.html
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