Humans aren’t the only animals fond of Georgia’s food.
While I was accustomed in South Carolina to encountering the occasional cockroach (which goes by the swanky-sounding alias “palmetto bug”), I was entirely unprepared for the population of ants in Georgia. According to one exterminator, one spilled drop of fruit juice is sufficient to summon a single-file march of hundreds of hot and thirsty odorous house ants.
As a Georgia pest control company put it in a blog post titled “Why me?”, there is “nothing more aggravating than coming home to a pantry infested with ants.”
Yet it’s a common occurrence in a humid state that ranks among the most ant-ridden, at least if another ant-fighting firm’s highly unscientific data can be trusted. A New Jersey-based pest service last year reported that people in Georgia search online for ant relief at about three times the rate of their neighbors to the east.
Of course, those desperate homeowners are bound to learn they’re supposed to be vigilant when snacking. But since there’s nothing fun about fastidious eating, most Middle Georgia dwellers swear by liquid ant baits; specifically, those produced by Terro, a brand that’s been in the ant annihilation business since 1915.
A single bait ought to see you through your gift box savoring session. But it might not protect you from the Asian needle ant, the newest addition to Georgia’s growing gallery of ant enemies. Beware, University of Georgia entomologist Dan Suiter warns: It travels alone. And it’s probably hungry.
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