'Dealing with pests has become my new normal, and I am slowly accepting that part of living on planet Earth means battling with these unwanted intruders,' reflects evepeyser
Photo-Illustration: Intelligencer; Photo: Yuji Sakai/Getty Images The ants came first. One evening, about a year ago, I went into the bathroom to brush my teeth like usual and shrieked when I saw a dozen dead ants, and several in the process of dying, scattered on the gray laminate flooring. This was the beginning of something much bigger: I’d find tons of dead ants and a few live ones in the carpet in each room of my house every day. For months, I felt utterly helpless and totally yucky.
“All warfare is based on deception,” Sun Tzu wrote in The Art of War. “Hold out baits to entice the enemy … the opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself.” Great advice for both human and insect warfare. To crush the ants, first we had to cede some territory: We took all the food out of the cupboard and filled it with the aforementioned poison bait, which the ants ate up and took back to their nest. After a week, they were gone. Victorious, at last.
Yes, my ant problem was yucko and emotionally taxing, but winning the war against them taught me about perseverance and problem-solving. After it was all over, I thought I had triumphed over bugs for good. But then summer came around, and so did the flies — every night after cooking dinner but before I had a chance to eat it, giant despicable blowflies, buzzing loudly and darting around the room chaotically, found their way into my kitchen and ruined my meal.
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