Toddlers, Ants and Crumbs: Calling the Bug Lady This is a crumby situation. This is our son. Honey-Comb cereal crumbs, animal cracker crumbs, pretzel crumbs, sandwich crumbs, cookie crumbs, Fig Newton crumbs, Goldfish cracker crumbs and other unclassified nuggets stick out like diamonds atop our dark hardwoods. Beneath the crumb dunes are hardened splotches of applesauce and yogurt and milk and juice and pasta sauce. Oh, and a lot of frog stickers. We sweep. We mop. We peel. None of it seems to help because our toddler's morsel-making capacity far outpaces our Dustbuster abilities. Therefore, we have ants. Lots of ants. Ants pacing the floors like expectant fathers. Great, moving rivers of ants circle our baseboards and climb onto our counters and even scurry across our dining room table. Nothing stops these little creatures. We blacken our fingertips from mashing them. We buy traps that are supposed to poison the entire colony. We even told them: "We don't love you anymore. Take your record collection and leave. And still, the ants persist. My wife and I exterminate one disgusting phalanx and another group begins marching on the other side of the room. It's like fighting violent floods with a sandbag levy. When one hole is successfully plugged another mysteriously appears somewhere else. Worst of all, they make us feel gross and embarrassed when guests come over. We suspect the Wensinks are becoming "that ant family" to our friends. After sanitizing my fingertips for the thousandth time I realize these ants will never stop outwitting me. I need to call upon a higher power for help. I need the Bug Lady. Missy Henriksen is vice president of public affairs for the National Pest Management Association, where she advises homeowners about protecting their families and property from the diseases and dangers of pests. She also runs the incredibly helpful blog, The Bug Lady. I send off a panicked e-mail and find Ms. Henriksen to be enthusiastic about my plight. I tell her I'm grossed out by ants, but have never really thought about what, if any, danger these little floor crawlers pose. Can ants carry disease or hurt home structures? Or are capable of some other issue I haven't even considered, like identity theft? Ms. Henriksen, of course, has the answer. "With more than 700 species of ants in the United States, they can cause a wide variety of problems," she writes. Carpenter ants can wreak havoc on the wood within your home. Several kinds of ants, including crazy ants, are known to congregate in and around electrical boxes and have been responsible for countless electrical malfunctions. Then, of course, there are odorous house ants and others that commonly contaminate food sources. With so many ants and so many problems they create - it's best to contact a pest management professional to help keep these pests at bay. That all makes sense, but I am hoping for a simpler answer than calling the Orkin man. To this point my wife and I have spent a good chunk of money on ant traps. Some seem to help, while some seem to function more as a jungle gym for our little nuisances. Ms. Henriksen confirms my suspicion that these efforts are a waste. The problem with a lot of traps is they often only kill the ants once they have come inside. It's best to keep the ant out in the first place!" she writes. If you do find yourself with an ant problem, it's best to have a pest management professional help with the control. Professionals understand the biology of ants and are trained in the most effective control options for various types of ants. I tell Ms. Henriksen an exterminator sounds great, but my family is on a tight budget this summer. Sympathetic to my tight wallet, she shares simpler ways to wage war against our six-legged enemies. One of the best ways to prevent ants is follow good sanitation practices - which I know is a full-time job with little ones in the house. It's important to clean up spills promptly, wipe down countertops and high chair trays regularly, vacuum food crumbs, and scrub down the outside of containers for jams, syrups, and other sticky substances prior to putting them in the pantry," she writes. I know those are some pretty basic suggestions but in regard to ants, cleanliness can go a long way in their prevention! Of course, toddlers can be great helpers when it comes to cleaning up! Even though I am skeptical about our nineteen-month-old volunteering for mop duty, I am optimistic. Ending our ant infestation can be as simple as a serious deep clean, which beats our Plan B: making our son live inside a crumb-proof plastic bubble.