Store Room Ecosystem

What does it take to make a sustainable ecosystem?  Hundreds of ants, an open bag of pancake mix, and happy spiders.   I discovered a thriving community in my store room, but can't figure out how the critters found their way into my store room.  It is far, far, far away from any outside entrance or window.

Treener told me she battles ants with borax in a syrup mixture, so I cooked up a batch, added a spoonful of peanut butter for extra protein attraction,  set it out on yogurt lids, then found hundreds of ants drowned in it.  Set out more.  More ants.  Got the piggy vacuum and chased down more ants and spiders.  I feel a bit guilty about the spiders, after all, they were on my team, but everything with more than 2 legs was getting sucked up.  I'd say I'll keep you posted, but you probably don't want to know.  (Nor do you want to know how many times I had to run out of the store room in the process of prepping for the colonscopy this afternoon....I tried to do yard work, but that was a disaster.)

Why does she look like that?