Flying ants

The house saga continues.  One night, we had put the kids to bed and Ryan and I were watching TV.  I noticed a bug on the TV so Ryan got up to go kill it.  The next thing we knew, there was another bug, and another bug, and another bug.  Within a matter of about 2 minutes, there were these bugs everywhere - all over the TV, all over our coffee table, and dead ones all over the floor.  I mean, thousands.  Seemingly out of nowhere.  We went into the kitchen and our kitchen light was totally covered with them - it was almost black. It was unbelievable.

I had a moment of total panic where I told Ryan we needed to get the kids and go to a hotel but there were no bugs upstairs - they seemed to be contained to the kitchen and living room, so we rolled up some towels and put them down by the kids doors just to be sure they couldn't get in.  I did some research online and found out that we had flying ants - they come out for a period of 2-3 weeks and basically come in the house at dusk and mate.  When they mate, the male ants die, hence the dead ones all over the floor.  I felt a little better knowing they didn't bite, but still didn't sleep very well that night.

I called our pest control service the next morning and he said it was flying ants and there wasn't really much they could do to treat it.  The next night, they came again - this time even more of them!  Ryan noticed that they were coming in through our skylight in the kitchen so the next night, Annie had a brilliant idea that we basically lock them in there.  We quickly created a barrier of aluminum foil and duct tape and secured off the sky light.  It then proceeded to sound like a hard rain as the thousands of ants kept hitting up against the aluminum foil!  It was so gross - but it kept them out. 

They finally went away after about 2-3 weeks.  We kept the barrier up all day, unless we had a showing at the house.  If we did, we would take it down and then put it back up.  Such a pain!  Thankfully they are gone and good Lord willing, this time next year when the flying ants come back - we won't be in this house so it will be someone elses problem!  I don't envy those people!!!