I didn't think too much about it and proceeded to vacuum them up with my handy little Dusbuster. A couple of hours later when I started to put down our placemats for dinner, I noticed that there were some more pieces that had appeared. This was strange.
When Merle got home, he climbed up on a ladder and looked in the cabinet directly above the ant parts. We don't use those cabinets. Inside, there were a few more pieces and a very tiny web in one corner of the cabinet. We had already figured out that a spider was probably at work, but this confirmed it although we never did actually see a spider. Apparently, the itsy bitsy spider was finding ants somewhere up there (we have no idea where) and after dining on them would drop the remains through the small opening at the bottom of the cabinet door. He was keeping his house clean at the expense of ours.Before dinner that evening we place a white paper towel on the counter under the cabinet. We ate at the counter well away from the little ant morgue and watched. First one piece appeared, then another and another. We actually only saw about two of them drop on the paper towel, the others would just suddenly be there. By the time we had finished eating and cleaned up the dishes, there were seventeen pieces of ant on the paper towel. (Yeah, it is kind of gross, but also interesting.)
Clearly, it was time to try to eliminate this problem. However, we had experienced some enjoyment out of the mystery for awhile and felt somewhat reluctant to kill our industrious little houseguest. But, you never know if the houseguest is pregnant or is a biter, so we picked up spray at Lowe's and Merle did the deed. We then placed another clean paper towel down again what might happen, but it remained unsullied.
Now, we hope that the ant population Itsy Bitsy was controlling doesn't start taking over...........................
