High Noon at the Ant Rodeo

For the last couple of weeks, we've been dealing with the weirdest situation: ants in our shower.

Ants. In the shower.

Now, it should go without saying but I'll say it anyway: we don't eat in the shower, so I have no idea what is attracting them. And it's clean. It gets thoroughly cleaned a couple of times a month, including this past Friday.

I had Orkin in over a week ago. I told him, "Ants in the shower, so that's weird," and he said, "Oh, they're just scouts. When they don't find any food they'll tell their friends." And then he sprayed down the bathrooms with whatever bug-bomb chemicals and left bug traps behind the toilets. He warned me that it might be worse for a couple of days because he was luring them out so that they would bring the poison back to their anthill.

Eight days later, it's worse than ever. I thought the idea of there being some kind of ant version of Yelp! (you know, where they tell each other that the food service in my shower is lousy) sounded fishy. The bug trap behind the toilet is doing diddly-squat because they're not coming from behind the toilet. I think they're coming from the poorly caulked faucet in the tub (this is a rental, or I'd caulk it myself), but I can't be sure.

Either way, I spend my whole shower with one eye open, washing ants off the walls and the shower curtain with hands-full of water, and then dancing around like a maniac so they don't wash between my toes. It's a freak show up in here.

So I know you can use talcum powder, coffee grounds, cinnamon, cornmeal and all sorts of random powdery things to repel ants naturally, but that's going to wash away in the shower.

Anyone know of anything else?


P.S. Strangely, no sign of ants or anything else in the family room, where the carpets are full of Cheerio and/or Goldfish dust. Shhh, don't tell the ants.