What a pest

By Bill Byrd
Times West Virginian

FAIRMONT April 29, 2008 06:35 pm

— They’re creepy. They’re crawly. They want to live with you. And, now, just as spring is arriving, they’re on the move.
No, it’s not your deadbeat cousins from Ohio.
It’s ants. Ants in the tree stump on the lawn, the one you promised to dig out last fall.
Ants under the broken concrete slab in front of the garage. Ants in the flowerboxes.
There are tiny ants, too. You can hardly see them, even with your bifocals on.
They’re marching one-by-one across the countertop, climbing from underneath the kitchen sink and the dark, moldy beams in the basement.
The miniature conga line is headed for the half-eaten piece of buttered toast that you left by the kitchen sink this morning.
They’re hungry . . .
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“Right now is when they start moving around,” said Tim Foley, the Fairmont branch manager for Pest Management Services Inc. The firm is located behind the Middletown Mall at 167 Middletown Circle.
If you spotted ants inside the house during a mild spell this winter, that’s a good clue that they’ve built a colony in the house, he said.
“They can get into the house in the fall and spring,” and start making themselves at home, Foley said. Ants in outdoor colonies are dormant in the winter.
The first task is to identify the unwelcome guest.
“Pavement ants and carpenter ants,” are the two most common specimens that invade homes in North Central West Virginia, he said.
Pavement ants nest under stones, in pavement cracks and in crevices of masonry and woodwork, according to this Web site: www.better pestcontrol.com.
“Pavement ants may forage in the home throughout the year, feeding on grease, meat, live and dead insects, honeydew (created by aphids on plants), roots of plants . . .”
Then, there’s the little black ant. “Nests in the ground are detected by the very small craters of fine soil,” the site states.
Carpenter ants should cause the most alarm, however.
They can cause structural damage because of their ability to tunnel through wood.
They are large ants, black or brown in color.
“They hollow out the wood to build a nest,” Foley said. They forage up to 300 feet for food and water, “which is the length of a football field.”
Carpenter ants also make “satellite colonies,” expanding out of their home colony.
A large nest found and destroyed in the yard may only be a satellite of the one indoors, Foley said.
Eliminating an ant colony indoors is an exercise in guile.
The most common method is luring them with bait — a bit of jam, a pile of sugar — and then following them back to their hole or crack in the wall.
An exterminator will then “powder” the void where the nest is located by drilling a small hole in the wall and applying an insecticide.
“It’s usually a one-shot deal. We offer quarterly services,” to continue inspections, he said.
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Preventive measures can include spraying the foundation and also the soil. Clear brush away from the home and pour boiling water on any mature nests that you find on the property.
Replacing aging and rotted siding and wood porches can also prevent the establishment of indoor carpenter ant colonies, according to this Web site: www.getridofthings.com.
E-mail Bill Byrd at bbyrd@timeswv.com.

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