Spring ant infestation Information/Story

It is common to find carpenter ants in homes during spring. Worker ants become active during winter if the nest receives sufficient warmth. The warmth can come from sunlight, mild outdoor temperatures, or from indoor heat. The workers break dormancy and become active and they will forage at night searching for moisture and food. Many foods include sweet foods and sources of protein such as pet foods, meats, and tuna. Nests are often concealed in wall voids, ceilings, subfloors, attics, or hollow doors. A home dweller ant will enter a room early in the morning, when you turn on the lights, the ants may be seen scurrying for cover. Common places to sight them are cabinets, sinks, and bathrooms. However, an ant colony may exist in a house during winter but not be noticed. If the nest exists at a site that does not receive sufficient indoor heat the ants will remain dormant until spring.

Every year in early spring I experience a new emergence of swarming ants. They have been and emerge manly in the kitchen first and then later in the bathroom. They crawl threw tiny cracks between windows, doors, brickwork. They will find the tiny crumbs of food that may have fallen into cracks of appliances or the hardwood floor. They will invade open containers of food if not sealed tightly.

Every year I have been successful in eliminated the ants in their early stages of foraging. When I first see them appear I spray the exposed ants with a window cleaner or ammonia. I try not to use ant and insect aerosel poisons in the house because the poison will seep through the house even if I open the windows to aerate. The spray also leaves a residue on the floor. When my cats walk around the house they may get the poison on their paws, and then injest the poison when they lick their paws while they clean themselves.

I do use dry poisons around the floor boards, windows and other places the ants may be entering the house. I then cover the dry poison with duct or masking tape that is 2 inches wide. I then clean up any exposed poison that may be lying around. The ants will pick up the dry poison, thinking it is food, and return it to the nest. The other workers and the queen will eat it and die. Unfortunately, sometimes the ants will swarm to another location if not enough damage is done to the nest. This will usual be the result of using a spray poison that kills most of the ants on contact.

Last spring I had a significant amount of reconstruction done to my house. Not because of the ants, I was only remodeling and adding an addition. The construction started before the ants became active so I didn’t have the ant problem in early spring. The work was being done to the back and side of my house. The first part of construction was to remove part of the back brick wall on the side of the house where the bathrooms are.

This was the first place I found a nest of ants. Water had seeped in around the window and rotted out a piece of wood. The ants made their nest in it and added considerable damage to the 2 x 4 that was supporting the window. Luckily we were able to exterminate the ants and then repair the damage. I spread about a cup of dry poison around the window area before we closed up the wall.

Every year millions of ants climb around the sunny side of my exterior brick walls. Not only do they climb on the walls but they climb in the tiny cracks in the wall, which indicates that they are forming new nests in the walls. I spray the area around the entrances and the ants will disappear for a day or two and the reappear. I also find ants infesting the plants in the mulch. I can see them climbing on the branches and nesting in dead branches. I put down different types of sprays and dry poisons around the walls and plants. The ants seem to be able to avoid or find their way around the poison and persist in their climbing. I follow the ant’s path and can usually find a nest. Most of the time, I find them in the mulch in the gardens. I dig up the mulch where the nests are, remove the infected mulch and then spray and leave dry poison in the mulch and exposed area. I can also find the ant paths leading to areas tens of feet away from the walls.

Every day for about two weeks I spray and put additionally dry poising around the walls. I turn the mulch and prune the plants in the vicinity of the walls. I then seal the braches with stem sealer. Proper pruning is also important. Eventually the ants would disappear.

During the construction I occasionally would see ants around the new construction. I placed dry poison in all the walls and if necessary I would spray the ants to deter them. Ants also began to appear around the back of the house in the area where the there was no construction. It would seem that the ants had moved to this location. Again I sprayed the wall and laid down dry poison. This area was harder to get access too the ants because there is a deck that stretches the width of the house. In this case, I had to crawl under the deck, not fun.

While replacing a door in the garage, the contractor removed a colony of ants that made a nest in the caulking around the door. It was a very large nest that had found moisture in the caulking. After removing and poisoning the area, the ants appeared in my basement close to where the door was located. I sealed up all the brick in the basement where there were small cracks and put poison down where the frame of the house meets the foundation.

I finally exterminated the ants around my house, Occasionally I would see a few ants starting to return, this usually happens around my front door or a window. I would spray them and put more dry poison down. I looked for them almost every day. During the summer I had my landscape expanded and redone. The landscaper removed all the existing mulch and we found some ant colonies reforming in the mulch. After the new mulch was put down I again put poison down.

All and all I spent about $100.00 on poison. I didn’t figure I would need so much poison. I also spent a good amount of time fighting the ants, about 2 or 3 hours every couple of days.I was told by one of the contractors that he knew an exterminator that could do my house for about $200.00. I don’t know if an exterminator would have been a better idea. In hind sight I think it would have been, I can’t be sure. I assume an exterminator would have more and better experience, and exterminator would have better poison too. An exterminator will not only put poison down, (he, she) will also drill small holes in the walls and poison where ants may be nesting.

This year when spring comes and the temperature warms up the ants will again become active and the ant colonies will begin to swarm. I have put new poison down around the doorways, windows, and anywhere else the ants may enter the house. It is March now, soon I will find out if I was successful in exterminating the ants, specifically the colonies that may have made nest in the walls. If they appear again I will probably fight them for a while. If the ants persist, I will most likely call an exterminator.