I’m renting a room in an older home, and I have some big carpenter ants that are coming into my bedroom through quite a small gap between the wood floor and the wall. I’ve never dealt with insects in my room before (just the occasional spider, which I know aren’t insects anyway, you entomology pedants). It sucks. I wasn’t going to go Rambo on them until I noticed one on my bed last night. Fucker! I can crush them under my my heel on the floor, but coming on my bed was a declaration of war. So, it’s on.
I’m wondering if clear caulk might the best way to deal with it, or if I should just try some ant traps? Or spray on pesticide? I’ve never had a problem like this in the past. I’ll probably talk to the homeowner about it this weekend, but I’d like to gather opinions and advice in the meantime. Thanks <3
Caulking the gap won’t stop the ants (they’ll keep going until they find another gap) and it’s not your house so you shouldn’t mess it up by putting caulk on a joint which isn’t normally caulked.
The ants are in the wall destroying the framing. This needs to be dealt with by someone who knows how to kill the nest. I would put ant traps along the wall and tell the homeowner about the problem. The real solution involves properly applied pesticides. If the homeowner doesn’t take care of it you’ll either have to live with it or move out (or pay an exterminator yourself, but I doubt you want to do that). The ants won’t stop coming out until the nest is killed.
They shouldn’t bother you, unless you don’t like B-grade Sci-Fi sized ants wandering around your house. They don’t bite anyway.
Whoever owns the house has got a problem and they need to get an exterminator in now. With carpenter ants, that may involve opening up the wall. They gnaw through wood and can mess up the framing(as Gus says.)
We had carpenter ants in our wall, right at the head of the bed. What tipped me off that there was a problem was that I could actually hear them gnawing (or was it talking?). We ended up tearing out a big chunk of the wall to make sure we got them all.
Oh, that’s awful. I didn’t know they were like termites. I occasionally leave something sweet out by accident (like a half empty pop can) and I was wondering why they didn’t congregate on it thirstily like smaller ants always do. I saw (and crushed) one of them who was trying to drag his friend’s corpse away. That was pretty weird, I wonder if they eat their dead? Or if he was going to give him a proper burial? (lol)
Question: why are they coming out of the wall at all? If they eat wood and presumably there’s plenty of it in there? The most annoying thing is that they sometimes wander around on the floor under my computer desk, and walk onto my feet and up my leg. But at least they don’t bite.
I’ve only ever seen carpenter ants go after wood that’s actively rotting (like the tree that WAS outside my bedroom). However, they’re still annoying. I use liquid poison - Terro. They drink it and take some back to the nest to accidentally kill off all their little friends.
Some years ago I had an infestation of carpenter ants in a cedar log cabin (Pan Abode, if you’re from the Northwest). Only one log was affected, and I noticed it by seeing a pile of sawdust on the floor beneath the end of the log. I took some Raid, and soaked the log thoroughly. Ants all died, and never came back.
yeppers: definite structural damage - especially since you don’t have any way of knowing how long they’ve been there to begin with. the homeowner needs to know this immediately if not sooner.
taking a page from my book, the little bastards ate one of the supports beneath my ten-foot, ground-floor windows to powder before i realized there was problem - and it had taken them a while to do it, too. they guestimated several years of it. i twigged - finally - when i spotted neat little piles of sawdust on the patio below the window one morning.
fortunately it was on the condo association to fix because of where the damage was, and not on me, and i’m sure it was salty.
they ended up having to call an exterminator AND having to replace all the of the joists around and underneath the window. it wasn’t pretty.
Good suggestions on the poisons. I think it’s a good idea to try to strike while the colony is new and probably small. I’ll talk to my LL about putting down some of those traps with food they take back to the nest, and see if it makes a difference.
Oh man, I wish I only had ants in my bedroom wall. I’m not entirely sure what is in there, but I’m damn certain it’s bigger than an ant. Probably that damn squirrel that’s been terrorizing the neighborhood.
