Ants (not the cutesy Disney kind)
Last summer Nathan and I noticed a lot of ants. Big honking mutant THEM! ants that invaded our house and creeped me out to no end. I can handle bugs most of the time, but these ants had were insidious invaders that had the ability to pop up out of nowhere. I’d be watching TV and catch one creeping on the carpet next to the entertainment center or crawling on the living room wall. The worst was when I stepped into the bathroom to find a half dozen or so congregating around the toilet. We sprayed but they kept coming back.
A couple of weeks ago I saw my first mutant ant again. I shrieked a very girlish shriek and squashed him with a square of paper towel. After receiving visits from a couple of his friends, I finally decided to call these guys. Marla and Ryan recommended them after they took care of a carpenter ant problem they had a couple of years ago.
I did a little Googling and found out that our mutant ants were most likely carpenter ants as well. Carpenter ants like moisture and I found most of the ants last year in the bathroom and laundry room. Last week I found an ant inside a Ziploc baggie I had left on the counter. I sealed the bag up and left him to die whatever horrible death he deserved for trying to eat my house. I also wanted to show him to the bug guy when he came over for an inspection.
In spite of my best efforts to keep my specimen for the bug guy to see, the ant in the bag made it into the trash before our inspection. The good news is, thanks to my lax housekeeping, we had a few dead ants in the track of our downstairs sliding door. So it would seem the ants we have are not the benign worker ants that like to play with sand and steal the contents of your picnic basket. Yep, they’re carpenter ants. “How much damage can these things do in a year?” I asked, thinking back to last summer’s infestation.
“A lot,” said the bug guy.
Let’s just hope the damage is minimal.
A couple of weeks ago I saw my first mutant ant again. I shrieked a very girlish shriek and squashed him with a square of paper towel. After receiving visits from a couple of his friends, I finally decided to call these guys. Marla and Ryan recommended them after they took care of a carpenter ant problem they had a couple of years ago.
I did a little Googling and found out that our mutant ants were most likely carpenter ants as well. Carpenter ants like moisture and I found most of the ants last year in the bathroom and laundry room. Last week I found an ant inside a Ziploc baggie I had left on the counter. I sealed the bag up and left him to die whatever horrible death he deserved for trying to eat my house. I also wanted to show him to the bug guy when he came over for an inspection.
In spite of my best efforts to keep my specimen for the bug guy to see, the ant in the bag made it into the trash before our inspection. The good news is, thanks to my lax housekeeping, we had a few dead ants in the track of our downstairs sliding door. So it would seem the ants we have are not the benign worker ants that like to play with sand and steal the contents of your picnic basket. Yep, they’re carpenter ants. “How much damage can these things do in a year?” I asked, thinking back to last summer’s infestation.
“A lot,” said the bug guy.
Let’s just hope the damage is minimal.
