Invasion of the Mailbox Ants!

Millions of ants were inside my mailbox with their little ant eggs several days ago. They did this last year and left after I scrambled them around a bit. Not this year! First I scrambled them. Nothing. Then I put ant bait in the mailbox. Nothing the next day. So I wiped them out with a paper towel and then washed the inside and outside of the mailbox with soapy water and a cleaning solution of vinegar and water and put the ant bait back in there. When I got the mail yesterday afternoon many of them were back. These ants are relentless. So I went to Lowe's and bought the hard stuff - yes, the poisonous screw-the-environment spray and sprayed the fool out of the mailbox, inside and out. This morning they were all dead. So I cleaned the poison out of the inside of the mailbox and sprayed the posts and bottom of the mailbox. Just because I have them, I put the ant bait things back inside at the back of the box.


I googled and found that this is much more common than I thought. It makes me feel bad that this is called an ant nursery. I'm a baby ant killer and their mothers!

Damn! I just read this from a mailman on his blog HERE:

Sometimes during a heavy rainstorm a colony of ants will seek refuge in a rural-type mailbox. Desperate people, finding thousands of ants climbing through their mail, will get out the poison and spray. Then they wind up with a sticky box full of countless ant carcasses. The best way to get rid of the ants is simply to leave the mailbox open. The ants, not liking the light and the vulnerability, will immediately begin to move out, and will soon be gone, eggs and all, leaving no trace that they were ever there.