Ants Ants Everywhere

Eight years on, it is still unsettling to walk into the kitchen and find a seething mass of (voracious) ants covering the dirty dishes. Not as unsettling, I will admit, as waking up at 4am to find ants streaming under the bed.

One could argue that leaving dirty dishes on the counter is inviting problems and that I should know that after eight years of living anywhere. As for ants going through the bedroom, there’s not a lot to prevent there; they emerge from the tiniest cracks in the cement, under the windows, down through the rafters... Interestingly, we’ve never had more than a few in the bed itself.

We seem to have built our house on a migratory route for siafu, otherwise known as driver ants of the genus Dorylus. They come through every few months; our foundation becomes a temporary encampment of sorts. Their presence is announced by a mad flurry of insect activity - spiders, cockroaches, grasshoppers, crickets and even centipedes scurrying, hopping, leaping and running madly ahead of the onslaught. It’s reminiscent of how villagers might have reacted when the marauding armies of old passed through.

Anyone who has spent any time in rural East Africa knows the telltale feeling of dread that comes with the realization that siafu are in your pants – and it usually comes about the time the first one reaches your waistline. There’s the inevitable effort to extract them from above, then from below and finally, off come the trousers in a flailing dance of panic. Their bite is painful, and it’s freaky to have a bunch of them on you, biting on all sides. But really, it’s quite easy to stay out of their way – as long as you are mobile.

Nightmare tales aside, of babies or invalids getting suffocated (and worse) by swarming ants, siafu are more beneficial than harmful. They are nature’s own environmentally friendly exterminators. In all the years we’ve lived on the outskirts of Arusha, we’ve never had to use harsh chemicals to rid our house of pests. Instead, we just wait for the next wave of siafu. We’ve successfully survived scourges of termites (I know, who uses wood to build in Africa, right?), crickets, cockroaches, other types of ants and a myriad of other dudus, all without applying a single chemical spray.

Moreover, the siafu tunnel through the vegetable garden, emerging triumphant with grubs and slugs and beetley bugs. Again, no chemicals needed.

Unfortunately, siafu don’t seem to be effective at eating the powder post beetles that are devouring the wood in my kitchen cupboards. I am still looking for a non-toxic solution to that problem. Neem oil perhaps?

Worms in My Washing Machine

“Do you have any idea what the little brown worms might be that live in washing machines?” is not the kind of question to throw out lightly at a dinner party in Arusha. In fact, it’s not even a question I’d pose to my best girlfriend. After all, washing machines are supposed to be clean, and the presence of worms, regardless of how small, precludes that.

It wasn’t worms I suspected initially as the problem. It was mould. My washing machine smelled funky inside. I read somewhere that a good healthy dose of vinegar can be used to clean out washing machines. So I selected “Rinse Hold” and “Medic Care Rinse” (hot) and poured an entire litre of white vinegar into the machine then went off to run errands.

A few hours later I drained the water out into the shower. Long ago rats chewed on the outlet tube when it was plugged into the proper drain (which has been plugged and a heavy container now sits on top of it). The shower drain is backed up so the rather murky water sat in the shower awhile. In the evening when I went to close the window I glanced into the shower and saw a bunch of little brown lines that looked like dead worms. Closer inspection revealed that they were larvae – brown, about half an inch long with teeny legs and hairs. Eek!

When in doubt Google it. “Brown worms in the washing machine” yielded a question by a stressed housewife in the backwoods of the United States. Her worms turned out to be a millipede problem. I decided to be more technically correct. “Brown larvae in washing machine” didn’t get me anywhere, but “Brown larvae in water” had better results. It led me to consider moth flies – also known as drain flies and sewer flies.

Moth flies, according to the Field Guide to Insects of South Africa by Mike Picker, et al. are in the family Psychodidae and are “small (body length 6mm or less), easily recognized by very broad and hairy wings that are held open, thus resembling small moths… Larvae feed on organic matter and aquatic fungi. Occur in very large numbers at sewerage plants, where they assist in breaking down fungal mats that clog filtration systems. Likewise, keep domestic drains from clogging with fungi.” I have seen the adult flies in my bathrooms.

So perhaps the larvae were in my washing machine eating the mould growing there? Further research on the Net explained that the larvae cling to the slimy sides of drains and waterways and carry air bubbles, allowing them to remain submerged for extended periods. You’d think they wouldn’t like the soap though.

Eventually it occurred to me that perhaps the larvae weren’t living in the washing machine at all, but in the drain. Perhaps the soaking in vinegar killed them and they floated up into the shower? More research is required. To be on the safe side though, I have put a new washing machine on my Christmas wish-list.

Photo above used with permission from University of Kentucky Entomology Department.
More information on drain flies can be found on the Web at:
http://www.ca.uky.edu/entomology/entfacts/ef615.asp