Just joining us? Did you miss the start of Mary’s “First Christmas in the Rose Cottage” series? Click here to start at the beginning.

By Mary Duggan

I had never in my life lived with ants. Never. Ever. Ever.

But ants had overwhelmed every square inch of my new home. And nothing was making them go away so I begrudgingly signed a contract with Terminix and began my uneasy relationship with those chemical purveyors of no results and long contracts. I didn’t know what else to do.

I had purchased my home in March and the ants had arrived in very short order. I’d gotten suggestions from everyone and tried all the techniques. I used boric acid powder and prayed that the cats would not find their way into the nooks and crannies that were now boric acid blue. I surrounded my entire house with one continuous line of baby powder. I was told you can not break the stream for even an inch or they will find that inch and get in so my circle was fastidiously in tact and completely worthless. I used ant traps that my Mom liked and when nothing and I mean nothing was working I called Terminix. I called in Terminix because ants were not an occasional nuisance. No, they had taken over my life and were making eating and cooking and feeding pets a complete nightmare and I was freaking out.

I hated the creepy Terminix guy coming over and I didn’t know how to explain it to anyone without sounding like a creep myself but he was so ugly in such a different way than I had ever seen ugly manifested before that it was just plain awful and he was really grubby.  He always got my signature and left me with a receipt that advised me to call if I saw any critters within 10 days. So I was seeing the Terminix man way more often than just once a month or even quarterly. I was seeing his creepy self every 10 days, and he was accusing ME of being dirty, and I was furious and not anything of the sort and we were making no headway at all. I believed him when he said that the hard frost would kill them off once and for all and then I would be free and clear until the next Spring, which I already dreaded – the next Spring that is and the new batch of ants.

And that is when I realized  the Terminix man had lied or been wrong or whatever because the hard frost did not kill the ants or even reduce their numbers. He freaked me out one day when he explained that he had been forced to use a chemical surround for my house that they really didn’t like to use and that was in the Agent Orange family and that if it didn’t work then there was nothing more that they could do for me. The EPA only allowed them to do it to a house once! And my house had been “done.” I had gone in a matter of weeks from Mr. Handsome Heating Guy to being dumped by the Bug Guy.

I agonized about the toxins. How could I get and stay healthy in a house sprayed constantly with God only knows what chemicals? How in the world could I run a healing center with so many chemicals sprayed all around it? But how in the world could I run a healing center with bugs running through it? I persisted. I prayed. I sprayed. I cleaned. And cleaned. And cleaned. But nothing worked. It all stunk.

 

But Clare was coming home for the first time as a married lady and we were all going to gather together for our first Christmas as a newly expanded family in my new home. I had the holidays to get ready for; and that was all that mattered.

Until the lake formed in the basement.

And the guys came in with the HAZ MAT suits.

Click here to continue to Post 8: Decontamination.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 18th, 2013 at 4:22 pm and is filed under First Christmas in the Rose Cottage, Life at the Rose Cottage. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.