Ng believes the ants are coming from a green area along Jalan SS20/10.
A PETALING Jaya resident had an unusual reason for not being able to drive to work – her car was invaded by ants.
Shaniz Banu Naseer Ahmad, 31, received a nasty surprise when she opened her car door one morning.
“There were black ants crawling all over on the seats and dashboard and also creeping in and out of crevices.
“There were thousands of them!” said Shaniz who lives along Jalan SS20/10 in Damansara Kim.
Afraid that she would be bitten, Shaniz got a car wash attendant to remove the insects.
This was not her first brush with the ants.
Between last May until now, Shaniz and her older sisters had to deal with several ant invasions.
“We had to take our cars to the car wash to get the ants out of their hiding place, ” she said.
Others living on the same street are also experiencing ant problems.
Shaniz’s neighbour Ng Yew Peng, 41, has stopped parking his car by the road as he believes the ants are coming from the green reserve strip along Jalan SS20/10.
“The ant problem has kept me busy,” said Ng.
The first thing he does every morning is to look for ant trails in his garden.
To get rid of them, he has been emptying sachets of insect killer where ant trails are seen.
Another neighbour, Peter Chung, 75, said the Kebun Kita community garden, which is located on this street, is filled with ants.
“They cling to the branches on the plant growing over the archway. While repairing the archway last month, I was bitten,” said Chung.
Apart from the community garden, ant trails can be found on the road and tree trunks at the green reserve area as well as water pipes and walls along the entire street.
Residents from neighbouring streets Jalan SS20/25 and SS20/26 have also reported sighting black ants at their porches.
“It has not come to the stage where we have to call a pest exterminator yet,” said Chung.
However, residents are worried the ants will infest their homes.
When contacted, ant expert Dr Nurul Ashikin Abdullah from Universiti Malaya’s Institute of Biological Sciences said the likely explanation for this natural phenomenon could be the recent inclement weather.
“The wet weather could have dampened or flooded their nests, making the ants uncomfortable.
“As ants prefer dry and warm places, this may explain why they are crawling into cars and houses,” said Nurul Ashikin.
She added that ants would generally build their nests near fruiting and flowering plants to feed on the nectar.
To tackle the ant problem, Nurul Ashikin said it was important to understand that ants live in colonies.
Each will have a queen that will reproduce her own army of worker ants. As long as the queen lives, so will the colony.
“Destroying the worker ants on site will not eliminate the problem.
“Using ant bait, which allows the worker ant to bring back the poison to the colony, is more effective.
“One can find the nests by following the ant trails.
“Once discovered, the nests can be sprayed with insecticide and destroyed.
“However spraying can be quite tedious if there are many nests, so ant bait is an easier option,” she said.
Nevertheless, she said ants play an important role in our ecology.
“Their movement can aerate soil. Ants also carry seeds down tunnels into their nests, inadvertently helping to disperse them.
When contacted, Petaling Jaya City Council said it would respond at a later date.
Ng believes the ants are coming from a green area along Jalan SS20/10.
An ant trail going up a tree at the Kebun Kita community garden in Petaling Jaya.
