Invasion

Large, black carpenter ants live in New Jersey. In fact, carpenter ants are hearty and find many locations just to their liking. Though they are not termites, they are still destructive to wooden structures like houses. You can find information online about these prolific insects here.

Over the years, carpenter ants have wandered into our house--typically during the springtime. We stepped on them and bought ant baits which we placed in corners about the house. That seemed to alleviate the problem.

However, on Thursday the ants chose our home for their annual convention but they really should have made reservations first. We were totally unprepared for the invasion. There were hundreds of them crawling around in the living room. It resembled a scene in a horror film. I got out the vacuum to remove them and while that did not kill them, I placed the scurrying contents of the vacuum into a plastic bag and tied it tightly in the hope that they would suffocate.

An exterminator came later in the day to assess the situation. He was impressed with the size of the ants. Maybe what we had in our house was a convention for bodybuilding ants. The exterminator set up an appointment to have the house treated on Saturday. Meanwhile, I had to deal with the ants. I spent much of the day vacuuming the aliens life forms crawling across the rug. Some of them came in carrying food on their mandibles. Maybe there was a potluck supper going on.

By that evening the influx of bugs had diminished but Daughter #1 read online that carpenter ants are most active from 10 pm to 2am. She placed another fresh ant bait near the spot beside the chimney which the ants appeared to be using as their special entrance to the big convention.

We did not sleep well, but in the morning while we did find a few ants it was nothing like the inundation of the previous day.

The exterminator sprayed outside and inside on Saturday. On Sunday, not a single ant was to be seen. I'm hoping it stays that way.