Mark Thorson wrote:
>
> Right now, I'm trying to knock down the invasion by hosing
> down the ant trail on the outside of the house every couple
> of hours. That works during the day, but they build it up
> again at night. Ants don't appear to sleep.

This morning, I was expecting to see the ant trail
built back up, but it's almost gone. Hosing the
exterior wall appears to be working. However, I'm
keeping the good advice in mind in case the situation
changes. Until the ants are completely gone, there's
always a chance they'll mount another surge.

My main focus now shifts to the squirrels in the
attic. The ideal solution would be to wait until
they're out foraging and plug the entrance, but I
don't have a ladder tall enough to reach it. I
managed to kill two other squirrels earlier this
summer with rat traps baited with walnuts, but
at least one of the present residents seems to
have learned to be wary of the trap. I have managed
to kill two rats this last week in my attempts
to kill the squirrels. Squirrels seem to be much
harder to kill than rats, even though they're about
the same size.

If this goes on much longer, I'm going to try
poison bait. Although I don't have inside access
for entering the attic, an accident several years ago
made a small hole in the ceiling at about the right
place. I could remove the patch, place the bait,
and put the patch back on. Another tactic, which
was tried unsuccessfully with the earlier pair
of squirrels, is to stick the end of my electric
leaf blower through the hole and try to scare them
away with a big blast of air. But this time, I'm
thinking of simultaneously feeding finely ground
chili powder into the air stream. I'm thinking
I should time this for the middle of the night
on a night with a full moon, so they'd be scared
away and possibly temporarily blinded during a night
when squirrel-eating predators are out hunting.
(When I had cats, I noticed that they were most
successful during nights when the moon was out.)

Could be worse. My best friend's mother has
bats in her attic, and she was told that she was
only allowed to plug the holes while they were away,
not kill them. I'm not sure if it's really true
that bats are protected that way, but it's not my
problem and I'm not too fond of her mother anyhow,
after a fiasco involving a pair of bookcases.