Getting Antsy

I am lucky enough to live on the fifth floor of my building, meaning that cockroaches and rats never seem to make it up this far. At first climbing so many flights of stairs was an incredible hassle (especially when carrying groceries, books, or furniture). But upon hearing cockroach and rat horror stories from friends living in Ha Noi (here I will do you the favor of not going in to detail...) I realized that my apartment's relative height is actually a blessing. But the one creature that can get into any place at any height in any condition, are ants. Tiny little ants ranging from black, to white, to red, come in droves when the smallest hint of food is present. I tend to be a very clean person in general, but I have amped up my cleaning routines in response to Vietnam's ant situation. I thought I had been doing a pretty good job wiping down my countertop and making sure all my food is tightly closed and put away, but, sure enough, every morning I would wake to find ants all over my sink and counter, marching in a tightly-packed line towards or away from some invisible food source. My biggest problem was keeping my sugar safe. Even after purchasing a tightly lidded sugar jar, I would find at least 50 ants in sugar-induced comas moving lethargically within my sugar jar. After a couple months of unsuccessfully combating my ant issues (and pouring a heck of a lot of sugar down the drain), I decided to enlist some local help. My friend Son told me to put my sugar jar in a bowl of water. It seemed a bit silly, but sure enough, after filling a bowl of water and placing the jar in the middle, my sugar has gone untouched for over a week now. Now that I had the sugar under control, I wanted to deal with ant entry; the place where my countertop meets the wall has a couple cracks in it, and I have seen ant lines disappear into these cracks on far too many occasions. This time, I was told to use crushed-up chalk wherever ant lines were present. I felt that something so simple couldn't possibly solve my endless ant problem, but figured I would at least give it a try. After swiping a couple pieces of chalk from my classroom, I came home, crushed them up, and sprinkled the dust along the problem spots on my countertop. Four days later, no sign of ants! I couldn't believe it! (I was so excited I even chose to include a photo of my chalked-up countertop and floating sugar jar)
Moral of the story.... listen to the locals!











And as promised, I have posted a video that shows the view from the rooftop balcony of my apartment. Pretty cool, eh?