Complete Guide to Cheer Up a Little When Your Laptop is Infested by Ants.

I woke up this morning only to get a miny heart attack when I saw tiny ants crawling out of my keyboard. Like most of us, my laptop is my most precious asset and I am not going to let any critter call it as its home. Damnit, its not my hostel room, in which till recently we were amicably in agreement with the spiders about their property and ours. They mind their business and we mind ours. Such peace. I am sure foreign diplomats could learn from us. But that changed a few days back. More about it later.

So yes, you don't mess with my Laptop. I was pretty pissed. So started firing away Google searches on 'Ants crawling out of my laptop' and that kind. To my surprise I came across some pretty funny answers, a creepy BBC documentary which talks about why ants love electronics but bees hate electronics and an ingenious solution to the problem!

Instead of being panicky, why not cheer up a little?



Here is the compilation to the funniest answers to the question,

"What is the best way of getting ants out of my Laptop"

1. A complete entomology-geeky answer which wins it all. I am sure they are happy with the attention.

First determine the species of ant. It can't be soldier ants or driver ants for example since these are nomadic. Likewise, weaver ants make nests from the leaves in trees and so are unlikely to have occupied a laptop keyboard. Pharaoh ants are a likely candidate, being small (2mm) and common in human buildings. If they're yellow crazy ants then be careful of touching your eyes with your fingers as formic acid can cause blindness.
Ants' compound eyes have specialised cells that can detect polarized light, so it is possible that the ants have become disoriented by the polarized light from your laptop screen. You could counteract this by using an external CRT monitor for a while, until the ants have moved on.
If it's an established nest the queen may have constructed a sizeable brood chamber, which is likely to be situated under the space bar or the enter key. Pharaoh ants have more than one queen though (unlike the popular image of a single queen), so the caps lock and backspace keys might also be concealing chambers, be sure to check those.
Foraging ants travel up to 200m from the nest, often navigating by counting the number of steps they have taken. An improvised small scale treadmill (moving a piece of paper) will often be sufficient to confuse them sufficiently to persuade them to move on, or to induce an ant mill.
Tease them out with bait. They're very fond of chopped liver.

Source: tim_hutton's answer here.

2.  Just get a spider and watch the show. Wait, Robot ants?

Or just get a spider and watch the show as the fight for survival happens. Although don't count on that, since they live in the laptop they might get some tech from it and build powered robot-ant suits to keep spiders away.

Source:  overmann's answer here.

3.  The return of the original bug.

"Sheez, that gives a whole new meaning to "computer bug"!"

Well, technically, the term software bugs originally came into computer lexicon because of an actual bug being caught up in the wiring. But the usage of the word bug for glitches had been used in the hardware world by Edison, long time back. I wonder if he stole it too (Sorry for being judgmental) .
Read more about the etymology of the word bug.

I just love how most comments treated ants as human beings and discussed psychology etc behind link baiting the ants and peace talks.

The most Ingenious solution from an Indian to remove ants coming out of your laptop.

Source: http://fertileforest.hubpages.com/hub/Getting-rid-of-laptop-ants

 

The most ingenious solution to solve the problem is here. Hats off. I didn't check if it works, but by the comments on that post I am sure it does. Such a Jugaad. From where? Obviously, India :D

It involves filling a tub with water, putting your laptop on a small bowl-island and putting a spoon bridge for the ants to leave. Also, good logical reasoning why it would work. Do check it out.

Well, a few comments over there too!

Attrition damages and bait moats!
"they seemed to have no problem going either way. In the meantime however, scores of ants had somehow entered into the moat and lost their lives their. I decided to just remove the bridge and let the ants lose the war by attrition. "



Also the best one:

Ants V/s Humans. A very creepy BBC documentary.

Insects and electronics have a very strange connection. While going through the forums, I came across this very creepy BBC documentary. Creepy sense of humour. Whoever shot this documentary  is like that weird friend of yours who stays happily alone, talking with inanimate objects and having the time of his or her life.
Satoshi Tajiri could have ended up making such documentaries, but thankfully he chose a different path and the world now has Pokemon.

And to end it on funnier note, a video back from college, where we had a little fun with a friend who is super scared of insects. Nothing was hurt, other than our ear drums. Yes, the friend is cool about it.

Hope you liked this post. Share the knowledge. The next time your or your friends laptop is infested by ants, cheer up a little :)

Ps. All this time I was typing this post, completely clueless ants kept peeping out of my keys. Howdy, critter! The irony.

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