I used to plant some vegetables on a small patch of soil I built with some bricks I had laying around. Due to extreme laziness on my part, I stopped plating and maintaining the land. Fast forward a few months and now there's an anthill there.
I want to plant food again and I've received seeds from relatives. So that anthill needs to go.
War
I will not stop unless all of the following happen:
- The ant queen gets publicly executed.
- All of the remaining ants relocate to somewhere far away.
In the past, I've done some lazy attacks like pouring a bucket of water and blowing it with a leaf blower. None of these worked and the ants always rebuilt the anthill.
The Plan
The plan is to dig the anthill with a pickaxe and pour boiling water over everything to make sure to kill every single ant.
Since I plan to grow vegetables here, I can't salt the land, mix soap with the water or use any poison.
The Action
I started by throwing a bucket of water on the anthill to make the dirt soft, after that I started digging it with the pickaxe. I would periodically pour boiling water from an electric kettle.
Ice Cold Offensive
Ants hate the cold, so I threw ice cubes and mixed them with the dirt. The idea behind this is to first kill the ants with boiling water, then make the territory hostile for the remaining ants. I don't know if this will work or not but the worst thing that could happen is wasting ice, and ice is free.
The Aftermath
I've managed to dig a substantial portion of the anthill, but I suspect most of it is still safe, hiding beneath a thin layer of concrete. While the ants are still alive, a huge (and probably the richest) part of their empire is no more. This is just the first of the many attacks. The west is restored and billions of ants died.
Ant losses
- A lot of ants.
- Their infrastructure.
My losses
- Several liters of boiling water
- Two bowls of ice cubes
- They bit my feet :(