BUGS...... !!!!!

THis summer the bugs have been particularly bad. Especially the ants.  The spring started with ants in the kitchen in 2 places..... near the sink and near the dishwasher and laundry room.  I treated for them using the edible liquid they seem to love.... they were gone in a day or so.
 
Then a few days later we had them on the other side of the laundry room and in the bathroom behind it. I set out the bait again and checked it before I went to bed...... the laundry room counter and wall was covered with hundreds of ants. I almost grabbed the spray can but knew that was the wrong route to take.......let them eat and feed the colony and the queen..... Next morning there were a few dozen still working the bait.
 
then there have been the ant trails up the foundation of the house.... 3 or 4 of them so far. I treat them with the sprayer. It's been an ongoing battle to keep them out of the house. Then there have been several trails to the front porch as well.....also treated with bait and spray.
 
Then there was the RV..... we had a camping trip planned and I started to clean up the camper several weeks ahead. So glad I did. There were 4 colonies living in 4 different places in the camper. One near the kitchen sink and range, another in the storage bin near the front, the third was under the table storage bin and the fourth was in the back under the bunks. I bombed the RV after opening the drawers and closets, but the bombs didn't bother the ants. So I set bait and let them do what they did best which is eat in large numbers. Creepy stuff to see.....  I had to replenish the bait within the first couple of hours there were that many ants devouring it.  Several days later, after a few more refills, I finally went in to clean it up. Back wall to the front.... the entire floor was covered in dead ants.
 
So now the summer is winding down, but the ants are still busy. I saw and sprayed another trail on the foundation the other day, and my wife got another trail to the front porch...... fire ants are trying to set up outposts in the yard...... got to keep on top of them on a daily basis because I don't need them in the yard.
 
we are suspecting that it is the higher than average rainfall this year, that is driving them to seek higher, dryer ground......
 
Anybody else having ant problems this year, more than last year?

I don't have any current problems, but I have noticed how the ants seem to invade when it gets real hot or a lot of rain.  

"It's so much fun working through the night with a gnat landing on your monitor every couple of seconds..." 
 I enjoyed the heck out of that too, but it got old after awhile. It became more interesting when the maneating wasps showed up. They seemed to really like the aero look of Sonar 
 
 Herb, we had more problems this year with ants. I attributed it to the work we did out back involving landscaping and excavation. We really got a huge amount of rain here too. I think it made a record for the amount as far back as they have kept records with the exception of the great flood. I had a few ant trails in the house. Not as bad as yours though. I put out a few of those baits that they take back to the nest and the next day they were gone. We had winged ants or termites coming from a hole in the back yard. I dumped a half quart of 10w-30 oil into their hole and that pretty much did em' in.
 
 What I have noticed here a lot are "noseeums", chiggers, mites,red bugs..I'm not sure what they are but they are too small to see with the naked eye and you don't know they bit you until after they bite you and then you start to itch. We have some furniture on the side of the house that some local adopted pets tend to use to sleep on. I like most of them but one large one that comes along is trouble and he leaves "deposits" on the porch. I might need to invest in a small non lethal firearm to persuade him to go somewhere else....anyways..... I think maybe the chiggers are coming from the animals. These aren't fleas or ticks. They are way smaller than that. I notice bites when I go there to sit. Not sure how to get rid of them. First off, you can't even see them.

And here I thought Herb was a beta tester for X3.

The gnats finally went away here. Walking the Golden is a nightly routine for me. Miserable in a cloud of gnats.