Dick Dasterdly

They can be quite friendly little chaps.
We used to sit on the ground for a snack when out walking the hills in the Canaries and often feed them some scraps.
Eventually by sitting quite still for a while we would get them to come up and take bits of food straight from our hands and fingers.

marqueemoon

As this is my first post on the Spain forum I will introduce myself. I am Nick and have lived in Nerja for a couple of years.

As I live in the centre of town I don't get the insect invasions suffered by those lucky enough to live in the campo or have gardens. I do get ant attacks launched from my terrace into the apartment when the weather begins to warm up, but I have managed to repel these without resourcing to chemicals. A bit of salt, plugging tiny holes in the walls, and disposing of the intruders has so far left the apartment ant free after a week or so.

I am certainly glad that I don't have to put up with fire ants! The downside of not having lots of insect life in my environment is that I don't get to see the birds and reptiles that they attract.

Rosemary

Hi Nick and welcome to the forum. We also live in a townhouse and suffer occasionally from the invasion of ants, usually seems to be after rain. We do have some plants on our roof terrace so presumably that is why we get them. When you say a bit of salt do you mean to deter them or to put on them when they come in? Like you we have filled in holes but they still seem to find a way in. I have found that they do not like my spray disinfectant that I use on the worktops so that also helps.

Rosemary

marqueemoon

Hi Rosemary

Thanks for the welcome. I too have lots of plants and I am sure that's what attracts them, so the apartment isn't their main object. I don't mind them on the terrace so if I deter the raiding parties the truce seems to hold!

I use salt as a barrier, and although it is not 100% effective, combined with the hole plugging and sweeping up of those who make it in, I do manage to stop them. Perhaps they just realise there isn't much to find inside and my efforts are irrelevant!

My girlfriend did go the chemical route the first year, buying the ant traps from Mercadona but the ants just avoided the holes no matter how hard she tried to guide them in

Nick

Rotor

Get some chickens , they love ants

marqueemoon

Not sure if I have space for a chicken! Already have a rescue cat, rescue canary and rescue goldfish, along with a rescue dog I brought with me! Just can't say no to my girlfriend

megmet

Hi Nick and welcome!
Life out here in the campo is never dull and we get wildlife of all kinds, some of it we would rather not have, that said I wouldn't want to live any place else!
The plus side of living out here is that we don't get the cockroaches that seem to be so prevalent in the towns.
We get an amazing selection of birds and have resident geckos and lizards, we even get eagles and also vultures circle overhead, after life here I could never live in town again!

bil

Talking of ants, we seldom get them in the house save in ones and twos, and they aren't a problem. The garden tho heaves with them, and their farming techniques with aphids are a real pain.

Last weekend we finally pulled down all the dead ivy from the carport where it has been rotting away, shredded it all and poured it onto the compost before soaking it all with water to help it to rot.

This morning I went to rake the top level, and when I did, it was all absolutely heaving with millions of ants. Never seen so many in my life.

jackytoo

There are eagles in marbella too and lizards etc. Wild Boar...except in the city centre of course Never seen a cockroach in my house or garden in 15 years of living in Spain, just the deadly red beetle which killed two palm trees.

megmet

I seems like it's going to be a long season and a good year for them!

jackytoo

Can be a nightmare with pets biscuits etc. Once took OH to Gibraltar airport, arrived back about 9pm and there must have been 3 million in the kitchen

jdr

First button, the exe file, or if you get a lot of zipped up files sent then I see the third button includes Winzip to unzip them for you.
I have used it for years and is a smaller and much faster program than Adobe reader.

bil

You do have to be a little careful with foodstuffs. We have in the past had problems with them getting into the compost pail or the bin, but so far (touch wood) this year they have left them alone.

bil

Thanks, I'll give it a try.