What to do when your car is riddled with ants 🐜
It's a common problem... right? Right guys?
You know when you’re driving along the freeway, enjoying the open road when you suddenly find yourself being bitten by dozens of ants?
You swat away the insects while trying to stay in your lane and wonder: ‘what have I done to anger the colony this time?’.
No…?
Oh.
It’s written by my sister, Tamara, about her long and undignified battle with the ants who moved into her early 2000s BMW some years ago.
Tamara always talks about the ants in her car as though it’s some strange and random stroke of bad luck which happened to befall her — a totally innocent victim.
But before you choose whether or not to believe that narrative, here’s a quick anecdote.
One day I was driving Tamara home after she’d had a reasonably big session at the pub.
On the way we came along an injured possum sitting in the middle of the road. We guessed it had been clipped by a car and was dazed from the impact.
Now, Tamara’s a vet, we’re both animal lovers, and we agreed that we couldn’t leave the poor thing suffering.
So Tamara who (even when drunk) is a skilled animal handler, gets out of the car and somehow manages to grab the possum and plonk it at her feet.
The possum is bleeding, bitey and extremely fucked off. We decide to take it straight to a 24-hour vet clinic.
I’m then rocketing along the highway while the now screaming possum tries to climb up Tamara’s leg and wreak havoc inside the car.
“Oh no,” Tamara slurred
“WHAT?!” I asked, already not coping.
“We’re going to get possum lice.”
“Possum what?”
“Possum lice. We’ll have to go home and burn all our clothes.”
For about half an hour I was mentally grappling with the ramifications of having to delouse myself when Tamara started sniggering.
“Possum lice isn’t a thing. I made it up,” she said.
I told Tamara to shove it. She laughed louder. The possum continued to scream.
Once the possum was dropped off at the vet, I tried to put the whole debacle behind me.
But, when I borrowed Tamara’s car a few weeks later, I noticed the dried possum blood was still on the passenger car seat. I suspect it’s still there to this day.
So yes. What a surprise that the ants moved in.
If you’re looking for something a bit more closely aligned to motoring journalism (how’d you end up here?) check out this article about the bloke who managed to have an almighty prang in a one-off Pagani formerly owned by Lewis Hamilton.
Nice looking car, but apparently it handles like a buttered-up shopping trolley.
Well, at least it did. Now I suspect it handles not at all.
And finally, if you want a very cheap new car (maybe because you smashed your $16m Zonda) I’ve reviewed the Kia Rio.
It’s a fun bit of tat on wheels. But it’s also not long for Australian roads. You can read the full write-up here.
That’s it for now! Have a wonderful week, spend a bit of time on the Car Pit if you find yourself bored, and forward this email onto anyone you think is suffering from car ants.
Steph Coombes