Marty and the Ants -- The ongoing saga!

We arrived back at Thrive about 10 pm on Tuesday night.  We’re tired.  We’re now staying with Jenn at her new place.  She hasn’t spent one night in her new house alone.  First there was Becca for a night, then Andy moved over with her.  Now we’re all here, busy trying to get everything in from the vehicle, and get people to bed.  I’m getting Marty’s CPAP machine out of the case and I notice some small ants on it.  I remembered picking it up that morning at Mabula, and there were a couple of small ants crawling on top of it.  I didn’t think much of it, and just brushed them off.  As I now unpack it and get it ready for Marty to use, there are more ants on it, and I see what looks like ant eggs in some of the crevices on top.  I turn it over and shake it.  Out comes 62 (more or less) ant eggs and 21 ants.  I busily try to kill them all.  After all, we’re up in the loft bedroom at Jenn’s place.  I see more eggs and ants running around.  I take it down to the sink, hit it again, more ants fall out, more eggs fall out.  I shake harder.  More keep falling.  I open a chamber that is sealed, FULL OF ANTS!!  I try drowning them with water.  Just in case you ever need to know, ants can survive a long time under water.  I try some hydrogen peroxide.  That kills a lot of them.  But then, I see more ants and the machine has water where it shouldn’t.  I set it outside, knowing I don’t have a screwdriver to take it apart. 

Because of Marty’s sinus surgery the first part of January, she can breathe a little better now, so she tries to sleep without it for this night.  The thought of ants in her machine gives her the heebie jeebies.  She didn’t think she’d get much sleep using it.  She lays down and goes right to sleep.  I keep waking up, making sure she is alive and breathing.  We make it through the night.  The next morning, James, the property guy at Thrive comes over with the right screwdriver.  It can’t be a regular one, it is a star headed screw.  Luckily, he has the correct one with him.  I take the machine apart.  There are ants where there shouldn’t be any.  There are ant eggs in other places.  I get them all out of the machine, I blow everything out. I use a hair dryer to dry the machine, to kill the ants with heat, to dry up the ant eggs.  It is clean.  Marty is a little uneasy about using a machine that was just last night the home of ants.  I assure her, they are gone.  No problem.  Ants couldn’t live through what I just put the machine through.  We’re good to go.  She uses the machine.  We are golden. 

Fast forward 23 days.  It is now March 26^th.  I look at the machine, I take out the water tank to refill it.  I see small ants inside the water tank, outside the water tank, they are crawling inside the machine.  AUGH!!!!!!  How could ants survive 11,000 miles in an airplane cargo hold?  Why did they stay dormant for 23 days?  I fill the water tank every 3 days and didn’t see them until now.  Unlike South Africa, it is cool to cold here.  We wrap the machine in plastic bags, put it outside.  We use Marty’s old machine.  We’ll deal with the ants on Saturday.  Our trip to South Africa, it keeps giving.  J