Last Friday I bumped into two of my neighbours stood outside
their adjoining properties (next-door-but-one) engaged in nocturnal chatter and
they were feverishly excited about something. No, unbelievably, it isn’t the
news that next week is Samantha Mumba week on X-Factor, it is a situation far
more desperate than that – hard to believe I know. They were stood
gesticulating at each other alternating between tiny ‘O’s made by their thumb and
index finger to child head-sized orb shapes sculpted out of the air in a kind
of David Copperfield levitation motion. A quick nod of recognition was
exchanged – I took in a couple of bags of shopping, Mrs M took in a couple of
bags of shopping, the girls pissed around in the leaves that for some reason
only gather in-front of our house.
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| Somewhere behind this is our house. |
I kid you not, every weekend I have to
shovel a streets-worth of dead leaves from our frontage, this, coupled with
sweet wrappers, a flattened silver foil platter and some impressively neat
hobo’s collection of empty beer cans tied in a double bag situation. The first
bag that contained the five empty Red Stripes and one empty bottle of Malvern
water (I know!) was a Tesco one, but this had started to split so an additional
and more robust Waitrose bag had been employed to secure the bundle. This tells
me that our local street drinkers are both responsible with hydration while
they drink but also lucid enough, possibly due to the hydration, to be neat and
tidy with their rubbish. I won’t lie – I would prefer them to go the extra mile
to the recycling centre instead of our front stoop but beggars can’t be
choosers (see what I did there?).
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| If I lived on Sesame Street my neighbours might have looked like this. But I don't. So they don't. But enjoy the fluffy fuzzy felt niceness of this picture because the words to follow won't be as cute. |
I live in the South East of England. Infestations do not
overly concern me. Well that is a lie, they kind of do. When it comes to insect type things I
actually have a pathological fear of infestations. In the first summer of our
current house I was having a pee in our downstairs loo when I noticed a couple
of ants being playful around a bit of loose grouting behind the cistern. Mid
pee I decided it would be a good idea to tap the tile that had the loose
grouting. I tapped. The tile fell off the wall. What happened next lives with
me six years later in such 3-D vivid Technicolor that it is a little tricky to
write. My shoulders are tensed up, I am shivering tiny afraid muscle spasms and
my body hairs are all stood to attention. Thousands, and I do not jest,
thousands of ants poured out from this newly vacated space on the wall. If you
want to get an idea of how it looked, and I mean how it actually looked as
opposed to my histrionic pumped memory, but in actual ant fact, Google The
Mummy Returns for the scene near the end when the undead army of dog people sweep
across the desert – it is no exaggeration to say that this unfolded in-front of
me. I screamed. I possibly peed on a few of them in my haste to step away from
the horror and fell over into the shower wailing like a child and kicking back
in an attempt to punch myself through the wall and into freedom. I was trapped
as the ants swarmed out of every crevice up and round the door frame, across
the floor and towards me. Ants, it seems, can smell fear like cats. I may have
started to cry, I may not have, but it is true to say I may have.
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| Pants. They rhyme with ants. But nobody really wants to see ants do they? |
It took about a month of ant warfare with regular sorties
and skirmishes involving spray and sugary poison drops to cure the room. Our
downstairs loo has remained untouched ever since, with half the tiles ripped
from the walls and the door frame chipped away to virtually nothing mainly
because I am too scared to redecorate it. The thought lingers with me that if I
am to retile the room I must first chip away any more tiles to get started.
Tiles that will uncover a human sized ant with red eyes and snipping mandibles
dripping with insect saliva ready to tear me limb from limb. I have sealed
every access point I can find – but I know this just means they are trapped in
the walls waiting for me. Whispering in their little ant voices. Mocking me. Clicking
their little mouths. Laughing and waiting for the day that they will finish
what they started.
This isn’t film of my ant swarm – but it is here merely as a
guide. Times this by 100 and have them coming at you up the walls and over the
ceiling screaming a battle cry as they advance – WARNING: MAY CONTAIN ANTS! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dprn6LAGVoE
I suspect I have gone a bit off-story. My neighbours were
shining torches on their houses looking at tiny pockets of fluff hanging in
corners then tutting and shaking their heads. ‘So what is it?’ I try to sound
as nonchalant in my question as (hu)manly possible despite the race between
fear and panic to own my body. ‘Oh yeah’ says neighbour 1, ‘we’ve got a False
Widow infestation’. I literally felt my reproductive organs retreat to their
pre-birth status. ‘Hundreds of them’ chirps neighbour 2. ‘My kids love things like
that, always picking them up, so I’m having to spray the place. You need this
stuff that they can’t escape, leaves a residue so all their little mates die as
well.’
OHMY F*****G GOD! Little mates? WIDOW? Hundreds? WIDOW? The
words form like words clouds hovering in front of my consciousness.
A
At this point I have pretty much picked the kids up and
thrown them into the house by-passing our spider-ridden porch and leaf pile
with speed and altitude, telling them to go straight upstairs. Ringing in my
ears is neighbour 2’s last comment:
‘They aren’t that dangerous, just nasty and aggressive, it
is like a bee sting and people don’t really die from those. Anyway, you will
probably have them too so keep an eye out!’
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| Peas. They are not Bees. |
