Get Ortho Max in the red foil bag. Kills present ants and when rained on goes in soil and kills that spot for bugs for three months. By the way ants love young tender roots so spread in your flower beds. Spray Raid ant and Roach killer in your cabinets and while spraying say die you little fuckers. Die the death of a thousand swords you little bastards. Die die die.

Spot on, Jim. :thumb:

I usually wait til I've been dead for a few days before I go to the doctor.

Mostly dead, you mean

I'm with Grav, kill me first then take me to the doctor.

Probably Lyme. They took some blood, gave me some doxy.

Probably also have to see a northopedist about knee tendon weirdness. Fibular Collateral Ligament is all messed up on needle drugs or something.

At some point I have to write a rant about how the pharmacy I've been using is dead to me, but I have to get ready to chaperone a school field trip w/ the mm in the a.m. (i.e. sleep)

That sucks. I'm glad you went though.

Fucking Lyme.

warm winters = tick population explosion

Good luck with the followup.

We are under siege by at least 2 enormous "sugar ant" colonies (small and black) plus there's a 3rd colony of a different ant (3x the mass, mostly red) in the sidewalk out front...right where the ant-phobic neighbor parks :(.

I've actually got the nearby sugar ant colony largely under control, though. They keep building new exits, of course, but now that they're getting FURTHER from the apartment I don't bother those. What did this miracle take?

Diatomaceous earth from the feed store. Diatom shells are pure silica, and every species is shaped differently--many are pointy. Every time it rains and washes the DE away from the part of the garage floor that meets the parking lot, they tunnel back up, and every time I just bury the active exits (which stand out against the white DE quite nicely). We've gone from "kitchen is swarming and the crack in the garage floor is practically erupting ants" to "I haven't seen a live ant in this place in over a month."

There are down sides to diatomaceous earth use! As it is essentially microscopic glass, you can't leave it down indoors where kids and pets could get it in their eyes or nasal passages. And it will need to be re-applied if you sweep or vacuum it up. My mom also swears by it and says she's gone so far as to take the face plates off electrical outlets, put the DE in the palm of her hand, and use a straw to blow it into the walls! Outdoors will often require frequent re-applications in windy or rainy areas, but the stuff's cheap and at least there aren't any poisons in it.

For the record, I cannot use poisons on ants or any other buggy invaders. The maintenance department would be very upset if I screwed up the lawn in any way, plus the neighbor whose kitchen was under siege is highly chemical-sensitive.

Had my first encounter with ticks a couple weekends ago. Turns out I have a serious squick-factor problem with any kind of parasitic arthropod--I must've gone through my hair with a literal fine-toothed comb four times before I was convinced every little twitch and tickle wasn't a bug in my hair (shudder). No sign of hitchhikers, thank God. All the rocks from that trip either went thru the dishwasher or are still soaking in soapy water, and I quarantined my clothes in the washer while showering, then washed everything on Extra Rinse in the hopes of drowning the little jerks.

Now here's my thread-compliant post for the day:

FUCKING SOCIAL SECURITY CHANGING THINGS WITHOUT NOTICE SUCKS BALLS, YOU GUYS.

We were informed yesterday that:

1. My sweetie has to decide whether or not to retain payee services (the reason our rent's been paid on time EVERY month since October 2007). The mental health center has been handling payee duties, but they're hemorrhaging money right now and so the Council on Aging is taking over.

If my sweetie retains payee services, they'll charge him the same, cut his monthly spending by half, force him to get a $49 check to his bank to cash EVERY WEEK because no, they don't do direct deposit, and they'll probably audit him. The thought of an audit makes him queasy at best.

If he doesn't, he has to suddenly come up with the emotional and mental resources (right in the middle of a massive medication switch-out) to handle all his own finances again. I can't be his payee and we don't know anyone who's qualified to be a private payee in this state.

2. Regardless of his choice, the way we pay our rent has just been declared illegal. It's been this way since May 2008, when I was put on disability--his payee issued the rent check in the full amount and was legally bound to make sure it was paid as close to the 1st of the month as possible, and I would pay him back half of that because SSI requires me to pay half the rent and utilities anywhere I live.

So this is now illegal, me paying him back, regardless of payee status (I've never had one), we think. It was a huge info-dump on our unprepared brains. We don't know if the new management team is allowed to have 2 people bringing in half-rent checks every damn month. If not, my sweetie may have to go without a payee so that a single check can still be issued every month, if we can find a way to be sure that doesn't cost me my health insurance while Medicaid is still viable.

I read every single terrifying thing Social Security sends me. I haven't gotten a letter from them since the beginning of the year when I always get a "this is now your per-month amount" letter. A little warning on "your rent payment plan is now illegal and can get you thrown off SSI for life" might have been nice!!!

The information you received yesterday was notice.

Would you have been happier if you had received a letter two weeks ago saying "we're going to make some big changes, we'll tell you more in two weeks"?

Might have given a little more time to explore options.

Not if you don't know what the changes are going to be.