Car ants!

[diethx]

For as long as I can remember, in all of my cars i've always kept a plastic grocery bag in my car for trash. I keep one of the handles around my gear shaft. I've never before, in like 10 years, ever had any issue with leaving left over food wrappers or whatever in the bag.

On Tuesday, J and I were at the mall, and I got some pretzel nuggets from Auntie Anne's, and I didn't eat them all. So I left the leftovers in the bag in my car. When I got back home, I pulled the front of my car up a bit over the curb/grass like I always do wherever there's curb/grass in front of the spot i'm pulling into. I didn't use my car yesterday, and today I open it up and there are ANTS all over my center console where the gear shaft is, and swarming the bag handle and into the bag. It took every ounce of willpower I had not to scream, lol. Apparently there are a lot of sugar ants around this complex. Thank goodness we don't have an issue in the apartment, but you can bet your ass i'll be making regular use of the free bug guy they have coming around once a week.

They were coming up from where my car was pulled over the curb/grass, into my engine compartment, and coming up into my car via the gear shaft. Of course we (I say we, but I was too busy scratching myself all over to do anything, so J had to) removed the bag immediately and got out the hand-vac, and they were concentrated around the gear shaft, but there were some here and there and everywhere. Now, I have a bug phobia. I'm not necessarily afraid of ants, but let's just say I won't be able to get myself back into the car until i'm sure they're gone. We sprayed the fuck out of my car with ant spray, and J drove it down to the self car wash, used the power washer to spray the fuck out of the outside of the car and the engine, and he used the super vacuum there to suck everything up inside... but i'm still all freaked out. My skin won't stop crawling!

[Xanator]

Trash in the car is a little gross, in a bag or not. Just take that stuff out, man, especially food.

Here's a fun story for your bug phobia:

A few years ago, I bought a 1983 Mercedes 300D Turbo Diesel from a friend's dad to use as a daily driver, as I had a 1G Eagle Talon I was doing some work on. The interior of the car was clean, motor and tranny had been swapped and only had 150k miles, body had 300k miles and a few dings. The hood of the car was at one point replaced, and was champagne while the rest was chocolate brown.

It happened that I knew a guy who owned a custom audio/window tinting shop in town, and he had an early-80s Mercedes 240D that he'd gotten for next to nothing from a scrap yard to fix up, but that ended up sitting behind his shop for over a year. I went to check it out for a parts car, as the body was fine and it was the champagne color of the hood of my 300D. It cranked, but he'd never driven it anywhere except into a parking spot, so I took it out on the highway in front of the shop. Surprise! Couldn't get past second gear.

So I limped back, parked the car, started poking around the interior. He was gonna sell it to me for $200, what he paid for it, and I was about to go for it just based on exterior/trim parts alone. I lifted up the carpet on the driver's side floorboard... cockroaches. Big and small, dozens of them, skittering friggen everywhere. I am not a bug person myself, but checked the passenger side and back seat floorboard and more cockroaches. I'm talking a hundred cockroaches, and some of them were biiiiiiig.

I briefly discussed options for bug-bombing the car with him for the sake of being polite, then got as far away from that thing as I could. Those little bastards were crawling all under my feet when I was driving. Bleeeeh.

[Jack]

I've seen cars with ants, roaches, spiders, rats, mice, a live squirrel, and even a dead cat in them, so a few sugar ants is getting off light! Some people just keep their car so disgustingly filthy that it's bound to happen. Once had a guy bring his car in because whenever he turned on the A/C it smelled horrible, and after a bit of dissasembly I found the source. There was a huge dead rat that had climbed up inside and managed to get stuck and die. It was pretty horrible. You're lucky it was just a few hundred sugar ants.

[Androidpk]

You had the inside of the car sprayed with a power washer???

[Latrinsorm]

You had the inside of the car sprayed with a power washer???Did you miss the part about the ants?

I recommend you put the car in one of those Terminator presses, burn it (the car), invent a way to set ashes on fire, burn the ashes, burn all the grass, pee on the curb, and pave the whole area. It's the only way to be sure.

[diethx]

Trash in the car is a little gross, in a bag or not. Just take that stuff out, man, especially food.

It's not like I leave smelly stuff in it. It's usually just tissues and empty water/seltzer bottles, but sometimes i'll leave an empty wrapper of something, an empty coffee cup, or something dry in it. Never been an issue before, and it's certainly never been "gross". I'm quite sure I won't do it again, though!

I think if it were roaches, i'd have a carbq and start biking to school, LOL.


You had the inside of the car sprayed with a power washer???

No, he vacuumed inside, like I said!

edit: Oh wait did you mean the inside as in under the hood? Or INSIDE the car? If you meant INSIDE, no he vacuumed, if you meant under the hood, yeah he plugged the air intake and used one of the self-serve car wash's super-hoses to rinse out the debris where the ants were crawling around, along the sides near the windshield and fenders, and inside down the front near the bumper.

[Xanator]

Yeah, I understand what you mean. I just have a thing about the cleanliness of a car interior. The car is probably the most organized part of my life.

[diethx]

Yeah, I understand what you mean. I just have a thing about the cleanliness of a car interior. The car is probably the most organized part of my life.

Actually me too, that's why I kept the bag in it. You'd die if you saw some of my friends' cars (some of them are so junked up, you have no place to rest your feet except on garbage), and the fact that I didn't want any of them scuzzing up my cars, or getting me a fine by tossing shit out the windows for that matter, is why I started keeping the bag in there in the first place. I assume I never had problems before because I never left actual food in there long, more than a week or so i'd say. This place is in the woods in a sort-of-country area though, something i'm not used to, and apparently they have lots of ants and beetles shit outside. :/

[4a6c1]

I think I'm one of those nasty car people. It's just that I'm a super commuter (Houston. Duh) and I practically live in my car. But everything else in my life is SQUARED AWAY LIKE JUNE CLEAVER THREW UP ON ME.

I know. Ok. No excuse. I'll clean it tomorrow.

[diethx]

AHahaha, do it before they invade your personal space too. :(

[Killer Kitten]

I was driving home 2 nights ago and out of nowhere a bug landed on my arm. It must have flown in when I got into the car.
I yelped and jerked and the car swerved. Like magic there are disco lights in my rear view mirror - cop pulling me over.
He tells me he stopped me because I was swerving all over the road. I told him there was a bug in my car. He kept me about 20 minutes while he ran my information and sniffed my go-cup of iced tea, then let me go with a warning. I could tell he was amused.

I'm with diethx. Bugs skeeve the hell out of me. I never saw the one in my car again, bastard probably flew out while I was rooting for my paperwork.

[Paradii]

I'd suggest that you just get over it. Ants are little sissies. Now if your car got infested with Walruses, I'd offer more support.
:welcome:

[Back]

Never seen or experienced that... but I have seen a seedling sprout on the floorboard of a beater. No idea what kind of seed could have found its way into the floorboard... none at all.

[Ardwen]

hell if you had a walrus infestation I'd call national geographic or something

[diethx]

I was driving home 2 nights ago and out of nowhere a bug landed on my arm. It must have flown in when I got into the car.
I yelped and jerked and the car swerved. Like magic there are disco lights in my rear view mirror - cop pulling me over.
He tells me he stopped me because I was swerving all over the road. I told him there was a bug in my car. He kept me about 20 minutes while he ran my information and sniffed my go-cup of iced tea, then let me go with a warning. I could tell he was amused.

I'm with diethx. Bugs skeeve the hell out of me. I never saw the one in my car again, bastard probably flew out while I was rooting for my paperwork.

No joke. Well after cleaning out the car super well last night and spraying the shit out of it with bug spray yesterday and today, I think we got most of them. I think we only saw maybe 4 of them in it all day, and about 10 crawling on the outside, which is a huge improvement. I still don't want to drive in it but I did some today, and while nothing got on me, my skin is still crawling, lol.


I'd suggest that you just get over it. Ants are little sissies. Now if your car got infested with Walruses, I'd offer more support.
:welcome:

Well maybe if I had your experience at being a dirty homeless bum with lice and who knows what other sorts of bug infestations going on, I might be less skeeved out.

But thankfully, I don't. :D

Oh and the bug guy the complex hires to come out every Friday told us that there's a huge colony in front of the building across the street from mine, and that they were in a huge line running from there to the curb in front of my building and in the grass in shit, which is right where I parked. He put down granules of poison and he said that should take care of the whole colony and keep my car safe from now on, hooray. I'm just thankful that there aren't any in my house.

[Paradii]

Well maybe if I had your experience at being a dirty homeless bum with lice and who knows what other sorts of bug infestations going on, I might be less skeeved out.

But thankfully, I don't. :D



If you are interested, I can spread my infestation on to you. I am looking for a place to stay for a few weeks

[diethx]

If you are interested, I can spread my infestation on to you. I am looking for a place to stay for a few weeks

I'm good, thanks.

So I was driving around a bit in my car yesterday and I even went and did some food shopping with it, and I didn't see one ant... so I think they're gone, hooray. I'll probably see one here and there for awhile, but the fact that not a single one showed up yesterday even with the smell of food in my car is a pretty nice sign.

[Methais]

Now, I have a bug phobia. I'm not necessarily afraid of ants, but let's just say I won't be able to get myself back into the car until i'm sure they're gone. We sprayed the fuck out of my car with ant spray, and J drove it down to the self car wash, used the power washer to spray the fuck out of the outside of the car and the engine, and he used the super vacuum there to suck everything up inside... but i'm still all freaked out. My skin won't stop crawling!

You should set the car on fire. Just to be sure.
http://www.operations.mod.uk/fresco/images/13nov_crawley1.jpg