Ants!!! Ants!!! Ants!!!

Our block of flats is infested with Ants.

I got really worried the first time I noticed them. They were chowing down on some brown rice. But what is more worrying than seeing ants is that those slow release carbs will keep them going all day so I know they'll be back. This also happened to be the same day that I got a note from Mrs. Sign Guy saying "Do you have ants in your flat?" Now I'm not suggesting that she put them there - just that I am so clueless I didn't see them until I was looking for them.

And so it came to pass that quite a few people in the flats had these ants. The Management Company called an exterminator who would be available all day to come into each flat and put down the poison to "kill" them. So we all booked various times of the day off and arranged to meet him.

At 4:20, nearly two hours after I had arranged to meet him, there is a knock at the door. It is Mrs Sign Guy and (Introducing a new character!!!) "Her Upstairs". They step into my flat, which thankfully is clean and tidy due to the fact that the carpets were steam cleaned the day before. I throw a cursory glance at their shoes - to make sure they weren't going to dirty the carpet.
Big pink fluffy gorilla feet - acceptable
Slip on trainer type shoes - passable but probably a good job she slipped them off

We walk towards the kitchen. Her Upstairs looks into the bedroom, wanting to see where the magic happens.

"We've come to put the poison down." Mrs Sign Guy says, "The guy came at 9am and left instructions with Her Upstairs about what to do. So we've come to put the poison down. We're doing everyone’s flats - we've even been up to that guy who looks like a cross between Bill Odie and Jesus, y'know the one who is always looking out his window. Anyway, I'm not surprised he has Ants!"

"Apparently they like heat and protein." says Her Upstairs as she puts the poison by the cooker. I can see why they like my flat. Not only do I eat a high protein diet consisting of lots of fish, chicken and egg white omelettes but I also have the heating on all the time. I contemplate not killing the Ants for a moment since we seem to have lots in common. We could swap ideas for protein shakes and I can blame them for turning the heat up.

"Have you had much of a problem with the Ants?" asks Mrs Sign Guy. "We have. I opened one cupboard and saw 1000s of them and I've seen them on the toilet seat and I was the one that diagnosed them as being Pharaoh ants. Apparently, they spread Typhoid. I looked it up on the Internet!" she says proudly, like a young naive woman who still believes everything they read on the Internet is true and isn't a series of vaguely connected events, joined together, exploited and extrapolated for comic purposes.

"Great, give the girl a medal." I think, "She managed to use Google! Now go back to 1996 when that would have been impressive. I would have been more impressed if you'd said that you'd been to the library and looked it up in a book." Or at least I think I thought that. If I didn't think it and said it then I’ll have just pissed a neighbour off.

And more to the point it didn't take a genius to figure out that they were Pharaoh Ants. Firstly when you look at them closely they all "Walk like an Egyptian", secondly they had built a little pyramid in the corner and finally they were worshiping the Ra the Sun God.