Posted on 08/03/2003 5:53:04 PM PDT by mhking
How do you move ants? Whistle at them? Point and yell, "Westward ho, the ants?" Get the girl ants to dress up in ant hot pants and walk out the door, thereby getting the boy ants to follow?
Beats me, and it beats Nancy Owen, too. Nancy owns Alegra's Bridal & Invitations in the Tarrytown Shopping Center. She has an ant problem. "I'm standing at the counter, and ants are walking over my order forms while I'm trying to write an order for my customers," Nancy said. "It got to where I didn't even want to come to work."
Nancy says Jeanne Daniels, the animal rights maven who owns the mall, won't let her exterminate her ants the way she would prefer to exterminate the ants, that is, to spray both inside and outside. She also says she got word that Daniels would prefer that she move the ants.
"The words were, they wanted the ants relocated," Nancy said. "We really wanted to move them to her house, but we didn't know where she lived."
So Nancy, who isn't allowed to sell leather products in her store, is relocating herself on Sept. 1 — to a new shop on Mesa Drive at Spicewood Springs Road.
Nancy put this stipulation in her new lease so that she won't get bugged again, so to speak: "Tenant will not be hampered from selling any products due to the dietary habits of the landlord or owner and may exterminate in any way deemed reasonable."
Nancy has never spoken with Daniels, but she said she got the word that Daniels wanted the ants relocated from the maintenance man. "We have a really nice little maintenance guy who comes around," Nancy said. "And I said, 'Just tell her we moved them. We'll kill the ants and just tell her we moved them and that's the end of that.' And he said, 'No, she'll want to know how we moved them.' "
As usual, Daniels, whom I refer to as the Meat Lady, could not be reached for comment. She doesn't call. She doesn't write. I have done everything but stalk her to try to interview her. She loves dogs. I'm thinking of putting on a German shepherd suit so I can sneak up to her house in Houston.
"This has become such an uncomfortable place for humans that the shopping center is facing a downturn of sorts," Nancy said.
At least three businesses — two restaurants and a grocery/deli — have left the mall over the past few years because they were selling meat and Daniels wouldn't allow it. The Holiday House, which does burgers and such in the mall, is remodeling a new location in West Lake Hills, on Bee Cave Road at Walsh Tarleton, which is expected to open sometime around Aug. 15-20. So don't be surprised if the Tarrytown Holiday House closes when its lease expires.
So how do you move ants? "I guess you could cover yourself with honey and lie on the floor, and once you get outside you could shake them off," said Steve O'Brien, branch manager for Terminix International, an exterminating business.
"Maybe you could have an ant wedding. Invite the in-laws, and maybe the rest of them would leave. Or find someone who has an anteater."
John Kelso's column appears on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Contact him at (512) 445-3606 or jkelso@statesman.com.
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You hire yourselves some antpokes and drive 'em along the trail, how else?
Citronella, often handed out and made into insect repelling candles, etc., is really useless for most insects, but it does happen to be a specific alarm pheromone for ants.
Not that I in the least support in certifiable looney landlord.
First you spray them with bug spray. Then you sweep their dead little bodies up and empty the dust pan into the garbage can. Put out the garbage.
Just dumb.
Wouldn't the FBI get involved in you started mailing "ants-back?"
Oooh! That was really bad!
Muleteam1
In the words of the great George Putnam: "We are living in the age of insanity."
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