Some species of ants, notably stinkin' fire ants are attracted to electric fields. Here's an old article where experiments confirmed they liked them:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/m...136/ai_8243169

It acts like some sort of drug, and they will forego food and water and normal colony activies, starving to death just to get their electric fix. What they like is relatively strong electric fields, and that means regions of high voltage gradients, such as the tight space between contacts in switches and relays. Once they discover such a zone, they apparently mark it and bring all their buddies who swarm all over it. It can be a PITA to keep them away once they learned of a particular location.

Anyway, I bring this up because just a few hours ago, I went to the bathroom and discovered I had no water pressure. I'm in the country on a well, and just as I suspected, fire ants had gummed up the contacts in the pressure switch.

The well is on a "general services" pole service next to the well house. Besides the pressure switch inside the well house, they were all over the main box and the meter box above it. It was ridiculous. I had to open everything up and spray ant killer, and then clean the contacts on the pressure switch. Luckily the contacts on the pressure switches are exposed where you can get to them, unlike some relays and switches which can't be opened, requiring the whole thing to be replaced.

Now, what I'm going to have to do is go down there every few days and respray with ant killer or they'll gunk it up again now they learned where it is.

This has happened with that well several times over the years ever since the fire ants invaded locally. Several years ago they got into a wall switch box out in my little gargage (out bulding). I had to replace the switch several times as I fought to keep them from coming back.

And finally, I've read that they're having problems with another "foreign" ant species called "crazy ants" (tiny little buggers that run around helter-skelter, rather than in the orderly fashion of most ants) in Texas. These things really love electrical and *electronic* equipment, even getting inside personal computers and other electronic boxes and just making a mess.

-Richard