I just read an article that was published in the Health section of the Washington Post this past Monday, the 23rd of May, about a woman who became seriously ill after being exposed to a flea spray. Apparently her cat was suffering from a severe infestation and she decided to hire a company to spray the house for fleas. She was told to stay away from the place for a few hours until the product "dried", but came home to find small puddles of the stuff on her floor. She was not told to open windows, cover fruit on her counter, or put away dishes or cups she might use. By the next day, she was so dizzy she could not walk a straight line and soon developed such horrible symptoms that her doctor thought she might have MS. Research led her to discover that the flea spray was the culprit. Months later, she is now finally fine. But her story, coupled with the fact that my current pet peeve is pesticides on produce, inspired me to elaborate on the topic.
The above can of Raid Ant and Roach Spray is something I absolutely hated to bring into my home. But one day last week, I awoke to find a stream of ants coming from my front door, down the short hall past our guest bathroom and into my kitchen - ending, of all places, under my washing machine. I tried in vain to mop them up with wet paper towels, but they kept coming back. So I grabbed the Raid that was in our garage. First I opened every window in our house, then put all exposed food away, and made absolutely sure that I sprayed only a very thin stream that did not pool up anywhere. The result? No more ants and no one became ill from the spraying. I have to mention, that for me, that is extremely unusual. Like the poor woman in the story, every other time I have been around any insecticide, I have gotten headaches, nausea, tremors, and then some. I am not advocating the use of Raid or any other such product. In fact, on the contrary, if you know of any natural ways to get rid of ant invasions, please let me know. I have tried bay leaves and they work great when it comes to keeping stray ants out of cupboards, etc. But they do nothing to stave off a stream of them that have invaded our home. I also did not like the suggestion that one reader of the Washington Post article gave that involved putting teaspoons of sugar around the outside base of the house. If you have to use insecticides such as Raid, please use them safely. In the meantime, I am wide open to suggestions. Insecticides, after all, are just pesticides times 10. By the way, I love it when you all send me links to articles like the one that inspired this post. Thank you!
For my faithful readers (i.e, anyone who is reading this entire post), I am including a photo of my poor son after his final High School Chorus Concert last night. I went to hug him to congratulate him on a lovely performance and my shoulder bag accidentally swung into him, hitting him in a most unfortunate place. For those of you who know him, you will know why this was especially sad at this time and why he hit the floor in pain. I tried to take another photo of him a bit later and he refused to look at the camera. I guess that even shoulder bags need to be "used with caution!". Be careful this weekend and God bless!!
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