What is with these ANTS? HELP!!!

Flip flop ready to attack.

Is anyone else bothered by invasions of weak coffee colored ants at night?  They are going to drive me over the edge!!!  As I sit at the computer working, it’s as if they’ve signed a pact to harass me.  How can they suddenly appear out of nowhere?  I’ve crawled on the floor and stared at the wall behind my desk, hoping to see them emerge from somewhere, but they must have scouts that alert them of my presence.  None appear.  The minute I take my seat again, one will go up the wall by the monitor.  How can they appear out of thin air?  My solution – admittedly not a good one — is to have a flip flop handy and smash any and all that I can and then sweep up the bodies in the morning.  These are the type of ant that destroyed my photo copier and took up residence in the microwave (turning it on didn’t seem to eliminate them), clock radio (which came on in the middle of the night thanks to the pressure of the ants, their nest and their rice-like eggs — agh!), printer and pen holder (which wasn’t even warmed by an electric current!).  Living with the unkown is maddening.  WHERE IS THEIR NEST?  WHAT ARE THEY DESTROYING?

Any suggestions as to how to get rid of these destructive pests would be greatly appreciated.

The invasion of the ants – not a pretty picture!

At certain times of the year different insects make their appearance … uninvited.  There seems to be a season for gray slug-like looking creatures that slowly climb the walls and sit there.  Harmless, as far as I can tell.  Recently, the season began when large, light brown ants appear at night climbing on the walls.  A fly swatter takes care of the obvious ones, but they aren’t the problem.  The ones you don’t see, the ones lurking out of sight, DO present a problem, however.  Today I planned to make a photocopy, but when I lifted the copier’s lid, I was immediately repulsed.  Inside the copier were ants scurrying everywhere amidst their rice like eggs.  GROSS!  This is not the first invasion I’ve experienced.  A few years ago, the same kind of ants made a nest in the printer.  I didn’t realize it until I printed something and little black ant shapes showed up on the pages.  Cringing and saying, “Yuck” over and over, I cleaned them out and the printer continued to print (until it ran out of ink, of course).  Not long after this unpleasant run-in, I was awakened one night at 4:00 AM to the radio blasting away in another bedroom, scaring me half out of my wits.  Another ant invasion!   I managed to take apart the radio, clean out the nest and get it to work again, except for the volume control.  A third invasion that year involved the microwave.  Ants crawled inside the walls and ran and hid the minute the door was opened, making them very hard to catch.  (A word of advice/caution: the smell of bug spray lingers for months inside a microwave.)  As for today’s ants, I squeezed the photocopier into a plastic garbage bag, took it outside, sprayed bug spray into it and then sealed the end well with tape.  Hopefully, the ants will die of suffocation or as a result of the bug spray.  I’ll give it a few days before checking.  Then I’ll have to take apart the copier and hope that all the ants and their fuzzy nests can be cleaned out and that the copier will work again.  Wish me luck.