Ok, so I don't just walk around trying to kill bugs. Generally, I let them out, unless I am really scared of them, in which case I just let them crawl around, usually. ( Sounds stupid, I know, but sometimes big spiders and stuff scare me) But what if you have an infestation of ants in your bathroom? What is a vegan to do?! I can't let them take over!!!

lovenlight,

linz

i got bugs

i got bugs in my room

bugs in my bed

bugs in my ears

their eggs in my head

bugs in my pockets

bugs in my shoes

bugs in the way i feel about you

bugs on my window

trying to get in

they don't go nowhere

waiting, waiting...

bugs on my ceiling

crowded the floor

standing, sitting, kneeling...

a few block the door

and now the question's:

do i kill them?

become their friend?

do i eat them?

raw or well done?

do i trick them?

i don't think they're that dumb

do i join them?

looks like that's the one

Secure your living environment, don't leave food out, wash dishes after using them, etc. If you don't give them anything to eat, they'll visit your neighbor instead, and then he or she can kill them.

There isn't anything down there, epski, I swear!! Its a bathroom in a basement. No food in sight.

I guess it doesn't matter anyhow, because my parents bought bug bombs and are planning to set them off next week. SOO, reguardless of how I feel, its their house and the bugs are gonna die.........

I just feel like it makes no sense for me to be vegan and avoid honey at all costs, but kill bugs. Cuz bees ARE bugs, you know? But my parents are gonna do what their gonna do, so like I said, it really doesn't matter.

lovenlight,

linz

good point. are there vegans who avoid honey at all costs, but are fine with killing ants? I usually avoid honey, but if ants are infesting my house I'd kill them.



but another thing to be concerned about... many products designed to kill insects are continually tested on mammals. I'm not one of those people who believes a rat = a cat = an ant, so it bothers me more that cats are being sprayed in the eyes with raid than it does that I'm ending the life of an ant.

They enter somewhere....follow them to where they leave the bathroom and fill up the space they use to enter.

I have had huge ant problems in the past......especially in my bathroom where there is absolutely NO food and the trash is taken out daily! Why are they there?! LOL. Nothing, and I mean nothing I have done has made them go away.....and I have tried everything; including all that was listed here and the STILL find another way in. It's really quite remarkable. I just gave up finally.

We had an ant problem in our house, and my parents called an exterminator, and he told us certain types of ants will come in looking for water, so it won't matter if there is food left out or not. We had ours in the kitchen, and they were by the washing machine and the sink (both places with water)

Probably why you are seeing them in the bathroom

My parents took care of the problem, so I didn't have to deal with it

You could set up some ant traps...



I mean it's not like killing a few ants is going to hurt anyone. If humans didn't kill random insects, they probably be more over-populated than they already are!

Insects make up 20% of the total animal biomass on the Earth (including humans and their livestock). It is estimated that the biomass of ants either equals or even slightly outweights that of humans.



Like killing a few hundred ants in your house would mean ANYTHING to them, their species or the wold ant fauna. Heck even killing a few hundred millions would not qualify as rounding error.





Still I agree that prevention is better because it is less messy than killing ants, it does not involve potentially harmful chemicals, and it is the only solution that works. If there's something in the room that ants want, there is no way in hell you can keep them out with chemicals. This at least has been my experience. It's better to try to eliminate that which attracts them.

Ants would not be in yor house if the house was not there. It is our faults. I just don't kill bugs, I save roaches, spiders, beetles, I just avoid ants (don't kill them, but don't take them outside, or I'd be outside a lot! lol). Insects and bugs arecool.

I agree. They are very cool. In fact I'm looking into keeping a few insects as pets.



But I would still be careful with words like "fault". We don't need to make ourselves feel more guilty than absolutely necessary, do we?



Ants are like tiny robots! Way cool.

I was with my family yesterday and we'd just moved some boxes out of the garage and inside with us.



A medium sized fairly ugly looking spider crawled out and my mum and sister started screaming a frantically waving their arms around yelling 'quick! kill it!' and i was like 'no don't kill it just put it outside'.



My mum went to catch it and lunged too quickly and accidently squished it. I almost cried for the poor thing.



Why should bugs be descriminated against just coz we regard them as 'ugly'? It was just minding its own business too.

Hmph... *sniffle*

I ate that! Sometimes when I try to save bugs I accedentally injure them, and it makes me feel so bad. I try my best, though. I save a lot of bugs that land in my dog's water dish...

I'll admit that I have a serious loathing of spiders. Seriously, if I were to find one in my apartment, I'd need to have my fiance make the 20 minute drive to come and get rid of it. Ever since I went to camp and woke up with a spider on my face, I've hated the things with a passion.



Ants don't bother me, of course I've never had an infestation of them, so I really don't know what I'd do to get rid of them. There has to be some way to deter them from coming around without having to poison them...

OK someone's a PJ fan I PJ...



Miss Meg probably has it right. We have ants in our basement bathroom and you know where they go? Yep, the sink. There isn't much we can do about it so I just make sure to keep the bathroom clean & as dry as possible. Not many come in now. Just a few a day, probably.



good luck. I figure, as long as I don't have guests coming, the ants don't bother me.



OH! You can also try to figure out where they're coming in. If they're coming in around a crack in the wall or a window pane or frame etc, you can always get some caulk and caulk up the hole. Worked for us where they were coming in the kitchen window...



amy

Kudos on the pearl jam lyrics, stonecrest.

epski there sounds like he's going to war



GUARD THE CABINETS WITH AK47s! BLEACH ALL SURFACES TO MAKE SURE THE INSECTS CAN'T SMELL ANY FOOD!



Ahem, but seriously I don't mush them on purpose but I ride in cars which mush bugs, I mow the law and probably smush bugs then too. Sorry, buggies.

Uh, hardly. Nothing but the usual sanitary measures anyone should take to keep his or her home clean and bug-free.

I don't kill bugs, but my parents do, so I don't know how much good it does.

lol stonecrest! I have not hear that song in a few years. Honestly depends on the bug. Ants I dispise and have my husband take care of when ever I see them. Some of the larger ones I either feed to my frog, or let outside. And sometimes my cats eat them.

oh wow, so many people knew those lyrics.. i'm so happy

i work in the oilfield and i enjoy destroying mosquitos that try to eat me. (#*$& kill'em all i say. working by water all the time is not a good place to stay away from them.

okay, speaking as someone who called an exterminator yesterday....it was tough.



but those friggin ants were getting into ALL our food. I swear, I have boxes of cereal and all kinds of stuff crammed in the fridge.



Those mofos eat SOAP. there is really no stopping those little guys. And I figure if we do it now, we'll be killing less than if we wait until later.



We rent our house and we had rats at one point in the attic and THAT was truly awful. I was just sick over it. We tried live traps and everything. I didnt want to have them killed. The landlord took care of that one. He called the exterminator. I just said lots of mantras and made wishes for them. And I'm comforted by the fact that if we didnt do it, later on we'd have to kill 200 rats instead of just a handful.



Its definetly hard, but I think everyone has their limit on what they will do about bugs.



We lived in a country house before this one (in the texas country). its a very tropical climate. and we didnt do pest control out of respect for our roommate who had terminal cancer.



I'm telling you, there were roaches just climbing the walls in broad daylight. they were everywhere. Eating on potatoes. all kinds of ****. I just cant live like that.



call me a priss, but there's a line there thats different for everyone.



one of our high lama's monasteries has spiders crawling the walls that are as big as your hand. people SLEEP in rooms with those guys. No killing. Admirable, but not for me.



XOXO

Beth



P.S. I take all bugs outside that I can though. Im referring to infestations. Not finding a roach or a spider or whatever in the house. They are always taken out. Even the scary ones. I do the same at school hoping to set a good example for my kids. They yell "kill it! kill it!" and Ms. Williams explains that we don't kill anything in speech class. They really respond to that.

I have ants. But I don't have problems with them getting into my food or anything so I just let them be. They don't bother me personally. *shrug* But I just see them singlely too, crawling here or there. If there were mass army's of them on my counters I might find a non-violent way to make them shoo or might feel differently althogther. I don't know. I have major problems killing bugs. Which is hard with a 3 yrd old little boy who wants to "play" with them.

I have found that basic sidewalk chalk really keeps the ants away. It doesn't work everywhere, but if you have them coming in through window sills or getting into the trash it works great.



It doesn't kill them, but sort of makes a barrier so they don't go where they are not wanted.



I draw on my porch steps to keep the red ants off and it works like a charm for me. Plus my steps look a lot prettier with pink hearts, purple butterflies, and green and orange polka-dot snakes all over them.





Not sure if it would work in a bathroom though.

I was buying Indra (AG Parrot) pesticide free food for awhile. I noticed these little brown bugs here and there in my kitchen.

Went in to fill his food container one day and there was a sign warning folks that because they use pesticide free food, there are insects in it. No need for concern, they said, just take the food home and put it in the freezer for awhile. At first I was like, NO WaY_ Then I got home and stared at the food for a while, waiting to see a bug. Sure enough there was major infestation. I actually broke down and put the container in the freezer for a few minutes. Then, I sat there thinking about how it must feel to freeze to death (being from Alaska, I have an idea, actually). Anyhow, I jumped up, ran to the freezer and got the container out (while considering just how much KARMA that would be)- I stopped feeding him that stuff and just forgot about it.



So, my mom was traveling and I stayed at her house to take care of the kids. Was there about two weeks. Adopted Asha (mutt) and moved in with mom. I brought all my cabinet food over and OH MY GAWD. MAJOR INFESTATION.

They were even in sealed foods (cereals, dehydrated beans, powder soups, my precious spices....)



It was very close to the aphid experience....I hated those bugs. We even had to throw alot of mom's food away. WHERE DID THEY ALL COME FROM!!!???



It was horrific.

We have ants everywhere. EVERYWHERE. Any type you could imagine--big black ones, big red ones, tiny black ones, super-tiny black ones--they get in EVERYTHING. I've tried a lot of stuff and it'll work for a while. But most if it they grow immune to--like sprnkling cinnamon or cayenne on the wondowsills they come in through. Some of it works, like putting my cat's food dish in a pan of water (which is a mess, but worth it, IMO). Basically, I do whatever I can do to be humane and still treat the problem. However--if we had an infestation, like some people described--bugs literally all through ALL of your food, in every nook and cranny, I would have to do something about it. That's just not a way to live, and, true, the bugs are only trying to survive and have no idea they're bugging you (erm, no pun intended)...but drastic times call for drastic measures. I would just ask show my utmost remorse--I truly feel for the buggies (actually cried when someone swatted down a bee and laughed as he squirmed on the floor in pain earlier this year at my school), hope no bad karma comes my way and call an exterminator. And then have guilty feelings for a while.



Cassie

Hey, just chant Hare Krishna at them (for reduced karma and it guarantees them a human life next birth)- that is what they did at the temple I lived at (when ants invaded the temple kitchen, where the food they offer to the deities is)-

You lived at a temple? Tell me more. **interested**