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Plants

Cold Plus Ants Equals Trouble in the Bay Area

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From Associated Press

People aren’t the only creatures who like to come in from the cold. Ants also appreciate cozy quarters--by the thousands.

Ants, ants, ants and more ants are marching, marching and marching into houses and apartments throughout the San Francisco Bay area in search of warmth and food. That’s fine for the ants but not for the human inhabitants.

“People are frantic, some hysterical,” said Ann McDonald, whose husband, Rich, owns a pest control company.

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Exterminators say they have been swamped with distress calls as the rare low temperatures have sent ants indoors.

One of McDonald’s customers, Dorothy McLaird of Sausalito, left half an applesauce cake on her kitchen drainboard Christmas night. When she got up the next morning she found “the ants had taken over.”

The counters and cupboards were alive with what Rich McDonald estimated were 30,000 of the tiny insects.

Adding to the problem is that chemical repellents seem to have become ineffective, possibly because of the frigid weather.

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