The most unusual thing I’ve noticed in the home we just moved into is an apparent ant issue/problem. Around the fireplace chimney there are a large number of small reddish ants climbing the wall. As I spread som poison granules (whatever has replaced diazanon) I pulled back some hosta in the area and noticed a pretty sizeable pile of mortar fragments. There are only a couple of very small holes visible from the outside, and the mortar seems quite solid, even when I scratched it with a key. So I assume whatever damage has been done is on the inside of the chimney.
So it looks like I have 2 issues - an ant issue, and a tuckpointing issue.
Any thoughts?
We have a really good brick guy who did some work on the chimney our old house. We’ll give him a call. And we’ll see how much of an effect the granules have how quickly. May warrant calling in an exterminator for a one time application. The house was quite dirty, and we’ve been doing a very torough cleaning. Overall the structure seems quite solid, and other than many MANY spiders and cobwebs, I’ve been pleased at the lack of signs of mice, ants, or other vermin.
There may not be much damage. I’m not an ‘antymologist’, but I’d think it was opportunistic entry into your mortar where there was already a hole, limited to a small area. Assuming the mortar is otherwise sound some poison and minor patch work is all you need. However, there may be a bigger problem on the other side of the mortar, this hole could have simply been an entry way into the house for the ants. So you want to find out where they may be inside of walls, floors, etc.
There are actually 2 places where the ants are visible on the outside. One is the corner of the FP chimney. So my suspicion is that the most of the damage is inside of the chimney. Not sure how someone would be able to patch the inside of a chimney…
A brick addition was built onto the family room. About 10’ down from the chimney on that same wall, the ants are climbing at the “seam” between the original house and the addition.
Both of those rooms have cheap paneling with a garish yellow pickled finish (went SO WELL with the turquise Tiki bar!) There as ZERO ants visible inside the house - in those rooms or elsewhere. We weren’t planning on doing much to that level for a while, but at some point soon I guess I’d better get into the ceilings and maybe pull down some paneling to see what - if any - damage has been done.
I hate you.
There are baits that ants will eat and carry off to the nest to poison the nest.
I’ve used two varieties, one by Raid. It takes a while and several treatments, but they all get whacked and don’t come back.
Oh - should have mentioned. The one application seems to have pretty much done the trick. Applied the stuff the weekend before last, and checked last weekend and saw zero ants on the areas of the walls where they had previously been thick. May require another application or 2 later, but think I should be able to manage that aspect. I forget the exact name of the product - something like triazanon. Granules in a shaker can, which I applied around the foundation and then watered lightly. Guy said it was the substitute for diazanon - which is no longer sold.
Wonder if the same stuff would work on the baby birds in the nest INSIDE the chimney…:rolleyes: So, someone remind me why I was so eager to buy an un-maintained house as-is?
Just kidding. The house is great. Just a ton of stuff to do - big and small. And it is funny how when you tackle one thing, your attention turns to the NEXT big thing to do - could be something you didn’t even notice before.
Took us longer to clean the place than we had expected - and it STILL isn’t as clean as it needs to be. But we’ve got the upstairs hall and bedroom ceilings painted and the floors and stairs are being refinished this week. This weekend about 1/3 of our furniture is being delivered. Things are moving along.
There is a mural of a parrot on the Living Room wall? Dear God. I’d love to see that. It seems like this place was a monument to tacky. Was the property discounted accordingly.
We knew practically every room would need to be gutted/redone. Yeah, price was way below what it would be if it were done nicely. At least 25% - probably more. But structurally it is very sound, is on a great lot, great location, etc.
I think I gave some more details in another thread about prioritizing. This place was done up bigtime into some kind of swinger party style in the 60s-70s - and then not touched since then. So the floors were beat to shit - but they had NEVER been refinished. The walls are pink, turquoise, etc - but do not have layer upon layer of paint. (And I’m kinda starting to groove on the turquoise walls with the yelow pickled trim.) The turquoise blue shag carpet had been (mostly) pulled up. The various sets of love beads came down easily. Haven’t tackled the foil/floral wallpaper in the bathrooms (including ceilings) yet. And haven’t used the charcoal grill INSIDE the brick addition. Still enjoying the multicolored light up disco ceiling. Etc.
Was this directed at me? Did I leave something up in the air?
And I looked over the other thread. I guess I never told you all how “special” this house is. It is/was a serious time capsule. I guess I should have asked “Mad Men” if they wanted to film any eps before we started demo…
My wife made the offer before I had seen it. We were talking on the phone. I asked if there was any sign of recent water damage, and asked if there was any new paint suggesting an attempt to cover it up. Her response: “Trust me - there is NO new paint ANYWHERE in this house!”
I think we need to see some pics of this place. The original decor sounds delightfully tacky.
I’d almost prefer to buy something like this, because you don’t feel bad about ripping it all out and starting over.
We looked at a house a month ago that had a living room was eccentric to say the least. The walls were a deep crimson read and all of the trim was black. They had a built in bar that you could only get in from another room, and overly elaborate woodwork for a house that is a two story rambler. It doesn’t show up in the listing, but I think there was a velvet Elvis portrait there as well. What makes it worse is that it was a fairly small room, and all of this made the room feel smaller.
