living with ants

The ants have taken over our shophouse. It started with one thin line of them at the front door, now they are in everything. It is hard to make dinner when I can't set anything down for more than 5 minutes, sometimes less! I put the spoon down from stirring the chili and when I pick it up again, ants. Ants eat our toothpaste, our bar soap, our garbage, our clothes in the laundry basket (especially the kid's clothes, which have bits of food on them.) They are in every room, in every crevice, and throughout the day we will be picking them off ourselves. Ants have ruined our electronic equipment, building nests in our keyboard and getting into our laptop.
It is enough to make a person nuts!