darkoshi | the cruelty of it all

The person I hired to reseal the sunroom roof has finally finished the job, this morning. He came down with the flu in the middle of it, so I don't fault him too much for the delay this time. (Though I do still fault him on not getting back in touch with me last year when he was supposed to do it the first time.)

Something I wasn't expecting to see, upon getting out the ladder to take a quick look at the roof, was a lot of insects stuck and struggling to free themselves from the still-tacky silicone coating. Ten or so stuck insects in the section near the edge where I was looking, and likely many more across the rest of the surface.

I tried to help a few of them get free. But even after being freed from the surface, they still had the sticky stuff on them. My efforts may have made it even worse for them. The first one might have survived; it disappeared after cleaning its legs for a while, so I'm not sure. The 2nd one died. Apparently nail polish remover, even the natural kind made from maize, is toxic to insects. I suppose the most humane thing to do is to leave them stuck to die that way, rather than being partially squashed, dismembered and/or poisoned. Or maybe a quick death by poison would be better. I don't know. I just don't know.

Does this mean I wouldn't ever have a roof resealed like that again? No, I probably would do it again, if it needed to be done. But it pains me. Does anyone understand how I feel? Does anyone else comprehend feeling empathy for insects? When they don't even feel it for pigs or fish or chickens or cows?

I was going to drive back in to the office to work the rest of the day there, but now I've spent so much time on this, I'd better work from home.

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I understand not wanting to be responsible for hurting something, and not wanting to see someone or something hurt. We can not feel it for chickens and pigs and cows because we were raised to not understand or care that the life cycle involves everything eating each other and that other life forms that we're taught and even pretty much forced from birth onward to eat feel pain and have emotions, too. Anything you are raised from birth to disregard you will simply...disregard.

That said, what's learned can be unlearned, and conscience and morality (do unto others) can make a remarkable substitute for the kind of true caring and emotion one might not be raised to know how to feel in regard to chickens and pigs and cows.

I was on someone's farm last week, talking to their donkey. And sheep. The animals were friendly and loved me. They won't be killed for food. The guy's cows, though, will. I didn't get to talk to them.

And not to be kind of...a downer? But plants feel pain and are suspected by some to have emotions. Sometimes I think it's just as cruel to kill them for food as anything. Especially the ones I raise myself, you know?

But we were put here to eat something, or even if not "put", the biology works the same. Eat or die. It's not selfless to starve to save all the living edibles someone else with a gustier appetite will probably just consume in your wake.

Anyway, the bugs sticking to the roof sounds like a horror story. For you and the bugs. I wouldn't want to see or to have that happen, either.

Question...I have tiny, tiny, tiny ants in my bathroom right now. They don't seem like food ants and are harming no one but keep climbing all over my walls, mouthwash, countertop and sink basin. How would you deal with them? You would not kill them, right? So what would you do to make them go away?

I don't like harming anything, but again, I was raised to think there's nothing wrong with a lot of harming! So it's my instinct - or learned response, I'm not sure which - to directly kill or poison-spray or poison-trap or sticky-trap these ants. I understand from a moral standpoint and from the ant's standpoint this is wrong and probably awful, but I just don't know what else to do except consider them my permanent houseguests (and there are dozens, if not outright hundreds, of them to deal with).

Edited (typo) 2016-03-21 05:11 (UTC)

With the ants, first I would try to find out how they are getting into the house. Try following the trail back to the source. Then caulk the area so they can't get in that way anymore. The ones still in the house will then not be able to find their way out and will eventually disperse and die, unless they find another new hole or crack to get through - and they'll keep looking. So if there aren't too many left inside after I've caulked, I scoop up stragglers one by one or two at a time on a small sheet of paper and shake it off outside.

If the ants keep finding new ways of getting in, I do resort to ant baits even though I don't like doing it. The baits with clear syrupy liquid seem to work best, even though it may take them a day or two to go after it, even when you put it directly in their path.

With the ants, first I would try to find out how they are getting into the house.

Through cracks above wood beams that run along the tops of the walls. The cracks they're getting in through are in outside-facing walls. Established that sometime last week when this problem started (or resumed; I can't know which simply because this is a rental but the landlord mentioned nothing about an ant problem).

Then caulk the area so they can't get in that way anymore.

Started caulking the day before I wrote the comment above but I ran out of matching caulk, as I had to jump with it from a dark wood beam straight onto a white wall. Need more caulk.

[..] I scoop up stragglers one by one or two at a time on a small sheet of paper and shake it off outside

Hadn't thought of that. Good idea. Except I've got to take the paper downstairs or else open the bedroom window prior and just shake it straight outside from there.

[..] with clear syrupy liquid

Which, according to the googling I did, initially attracts more ants because it's a bait, then kills the whole colony. Which, eh. I'm actually preserving more of their lives in the long run by just killing them as they come in (or, even better, small-sheet-of-papering them out the nearest window as you suggested), as long as the amount of them I see is limited once my caulking gets done.

Thanks for letting me pick your brain for a minute (I kind of admire the DIY work you do, not to mention your depth of feeling for living things, which was why I asked)... :)

Edited 2016-03-22 03:40 (UTC)

If you place the paper flat on the surface in the ant's path, it often will walk straight onto it. Then you just need to be quick to get it outside and shake it off. A window should be fine. I'd expect the light weight of the ants combined with wind resistance probably keeps them from hitting the ground hard.

If the ant tries to avoid the paper, then you can gently push the paper towards the ant in order to "scoop" them up like I mentioned.

Yeah... *mulls over the physics involved* the thing is, they're so tiny (think a spec of dust or smaller even than the tiniest flea) that they might be wind-resistant enough to remain on the paper after it's thrown out the window! But there's a bottom-story roof not too far below they could land on, or alternatively, that the paper could land on with them on it, if need be.

Oh, I wasn't thinking of tossing the paper itself out. I'd only shake it a little so the ant would fall off it, then reuse the paper for the next ant. But either way would work.

And if they're small enough that they don't readily fall off the paper with a shake, I'd blow at them (blow as in puff of air from my mouth) til they did.

Working from hme can be sometimes more productive,

When I was younger I had zero empathy for pain felt by animals/insects. Now, maybe, I have too much. So, yeah.

the cruelty of it all

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