So I'm sitting in my basement workshop, working on a computer, when something buzzes by my head and plops down on the bench in front of me. It's an ant with wings. A princess going off to found a new colony. Squish. Bzzzzz . . .plop. Another one. this time it lands in my computer case. Ok I think . . .squish. Then I look up . . .another two are bussing around my main shop light. whack, squish squish. 2 more take their places . . . fast forward to 30 some kills later . . . I decide to figure out where the hell these buiggers are comming from, I look around and find a crack in my basement floor near my water heater . . . teeming. I MEAN TEEMING. with little buggers. They must've just come up because I never noticed any of these bugs before and I'm in the shop everyday. I remember this concrete being totally solid . . .where they are comming up is more than just a crack really, its been reduced to a sandy gravel. I freak. I jump in my car . . .thank god walgreens is open 24-7. I grab the Country scent RAID and come back home. Check around the room again and find that they really haven;t spread yet . . .they've been attempting to make it to the water drain, and most of them are drowning in it. I start there and spray all around the crack, then in the crack itself. Much dying occurs. I make a mental note to spray again tommorrow morning before I leave for school and then pick up a bag of quickcrete (the patching concrete with fiberglass) and then to clean out the hole and seal it up. Any other ideas what kind of precautions I can take to stamp out this nest of little buggers? I'm just glad I got em before they went up to the kitchen . . . .
I just found ANTS comming up through my floor!
- Thread starter p0ntif
- Start date
Kadarin
Lifer
- Nov 23, 2001
- 44,296
- 16
- 81
I hate ants.. (although it's not the same kind of hate reserved for spiders) Every time I have an ant problem (not very often) I make a mental note to thank whoever invented RAID.. 
I used to work (years ago) at a tire place in Sacramento that had an amazing ant problem: You could leave food on a perfectly clean counter and come back to it 15 minutes later to find it covered with ants...
I used to work (years ago) at a tire place in Sacramento that had an amazing ant problem: You could leave food on a perfectly clean counter and come back to it 15 minutes later to find it covered with ants...
Wow...now *there's* a post-per-day countOriginally posted by: Skyclad1uhm1
Not friendly to stamp on a fellow ATOT-er
I see a red ant crawl on my monitor screen every so often. Don't know where they're coming from, or why they keep going to my monitor, but they leave a red blot and it sucks.
Hate to tell you this p0ntif, but those are NOT ants..
They are TERMITES......
They live in the soil under your house up to 30' deep
and Swarm when the colony dosn't have any room left, usually in warmer wether.
They are TERMITES......
They live in the soil under your house up to 30' deep
and Swarm when the colony dosn't have any room left, usually in warmer wether.
I was thinking the same thing when he mentioned that they were flying around the light. It is swarming season right now and if I remember correctly, there are 2 species of subterraneans present in Nebraska (where it says p0ntif is from in his profile).
p0ntif--if you could supply pics, I could probably identify them for you. Or if you could describe them...color, size, wing shape, etc.
UPDATE: Ok so I compared the morphology of the insect to a of both a termite and an ant. DIAGRAM I picked up one of the flying little buggers that I sprayed . . .the ones I smashed were too . . .well . . .unidentifiable I guess. Anyhow, upon inspection, these are indeed ants. We have the elbowed antennae, the smaller rear wings, and the spindle-like abdomen connection. Thank god. You scared the bejeezus out of me . . . not that ants can;t do damage, I just think there's a psychological fear of termites :Q. Anyhow, now to call the exterminator . . .
Yeah, well that heavy dose of 'Country Scent' RAID that I sprayed on them last night is still hanging pretty heavy in the air. Just being around it makes me feel sick. :disgust: I don't know which odor smells worse: The original smell of pesticide RAID, or this new Pesticide-laden potpourri smelling crap. yick. I don;t think i've ever smelled country like that. Country scent my left foot!
I've had those for years in my basement.
The ants don't bother me as much as the WINGED ones do. By the way, it's not necessarily a female, male ants have wings too. Remember it's the WORKERS that are the small ones with no wings I dont think they're male nor female. The ones I have are lousy flyers. They come towards the end of the season when they are kicked out of the nest by the workers in the dozens or hundreds. When I see em I pick em up and feed em to my giant danios who devour them with relish. I must've killed oh I'd say 500 of these winged ones just this year. The way to pick em up without harming them is by the wings, and then I just plop them in the water.
I did find the source of mine, near my heater too but I haven't found the exact crack yet.
The workers either eat leftover food in the basement or dust mites whichever they find first. When I don't keep a close eye on them for some time and I let them just fly around, I wake up in the early morning with about 5 of them in my fluffy hair.
The ants don't bother me as much as the WINGED ones do. By the way, it's not necessarily a female, male ants have wings too. Remember it's the WORKERS that are the small ones with no wings I dont think they're male nor female. The ones I have are lousy flyers. They come towards the end of the season when they are kicked out of the nest by the workers in the dozens or hundreds. When I see em I pick em up and feed em to my giant danios who devour them with relish. I must've killed oh I'd say 500 of these winged ones just this year. The way to pick em up without harming them is by the wings, and then I just plop them in the water.
I did find the source of mine, near my heater too but I haven't found the exact crack yet.
The workers either eat leftover food in the basement or dust mites whichever they find first. When I don't keep a close eye on them for some time and I let them just fly around, I wake up in the early morning with about 5 of them in my fluffy hair.
For a moment there I was wondering why he'd need a RAID system when he had ants, let alone a who pallet of them
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