So I got back from Vacation (TMI)

So, I left for Sarasota for a couple days, and put out the stray cat that has adopted me (since she has trouble aiming in the litterbox and I don’t want it staying around for days,) and put out some extra food and water for her.

Now, before when I did this I came back to find the food taken over, only half-eaten, by hordes of ants. But I did what my Mom suggested, and which was face-slappingly obvious when she told me :smack: , which is to leave out a large pan of water with a pan of food in the middle: ants cant get it.

So I left several days worth of food outside and left. When I came back, there was still the pan of food, mostly empty, in the middle of the water pan. But floating in the water pan were, I kid you not, more than a dozen dead cockroaches.

Okay, guys, let’s make a deal. If you want to make it past the nuclear holocaust, you can’t keep volunteering yourselves for the Darwin awards like beer-cravin’ slugs.

Charge of the Cockroaches’ Brigade!

If it isn’t ants, it’s cockroaches. And I’m sure if you found a way to avoid the cockroaches, some other pest will rear its ugly, antennaed, multi-eyed head up.

WRS

In retrospect, perhaps they perished in search of water, rather than food. But it doesn’t make it any less gross.

To keep the ants away, put the bowl of food on a larger plate or tray on which you have sprinkled cinnamon. The ants don’t like it.

I’m not sure how roaches feel about various spices, though. Can’t help you there.

From what I understand, roaches really dislike bay leaves.

They also really hate bay windows, so if you have a large, nice living room, you could put the food in there.

I was expecting something totally different, since I first read the thread title as

So I got back from the Vatican (TMI)