'I thought these were spilled coffee beans in my cupboard – then they started moving'

A woman attempting to make a coffee at work made a horrifying discovery when she opened the break room cupboard.

Uploading photos of the cupboard to Reddit, user Echowolfe88 revealed how the doors and shelves of the unit were covered in what looked like dirt. But a closer look showed what looked like filth was in fact hundreds of ants living in the cupboard and spreading themselves around the doors.

It appears the ants managed to make their way into the cupboard over the weekend as the original poster says it was pristine last Friday (May 10). They wrote: "The ant situation we found at work when we went to make a coffee."

Images of the cupboard show horrifying clusters of ants crawling over the cups, coffee and cases inside. Close-ups of the infestation show shelves fully covered by the ants, and what appears to be eggs. The original poster added: "The best thing about this is the fact that it's actually in a school".

The now viral post stunned Reddit users, with one left thinking it was "coffee grounds at first". The original poster also thought it was coffee beans "before it all started moving" Other users were left disgusted by the discovery and suggested everything from an anteater to a flamethrower to sort it out.

One wrote: "Guess the next order of things logically is to get a super cute office pet, like an anteater. Maybe a flock of them." Another user suggested just the one anteater would deal with the problem. They wrote: "Anteaters can eat up to 30,000 ants in a day and most ant colonies consist of 20,000-100,000 ants. I doubt this is a fully healthy colony so it's probably in the lower end, so 1 anteater probably deals with this issue in 1 day."

Finding the source of the ants proved tricky but a pest controller was called out the same day the discovery was made. Reddit users speculated on the origins of the infestation, with the original poster believing "their nest under the building flooded". Other users wondering whether coffee was still on the cards after the discovery were relieved to hear the team decided to head out for coffee as it was "safer".