Short version: Trying to determine if we have a serious issue or not. Wife is ready to call exterminator; I'm not.
Longer version: Basically, for the past few years, every spring we start seeing ants, mainly in the attic. Not a huge amount, but enough to want to do something about it. So each spring about this time of year, I've gone outside with a flashlight and find a trail or two coming to the house. I go with diatomaceous earth, boric acid powder; maybe a spray too; and then they go away. Until the next spring.
Seems to me a seasonal pattern, and each year foraging ants find a new way into the home. Unless we have nests inside and these are foragers going out and not in! (I know correlation does not necessarily mean causation, and it's possible that my treatments are doing nothing and the ants would naturally wind down after springtime.)
We had a particularly wet spring here in NE Ohio, so that may be increasing ant activity inside our house now in 2011. That coupled with this being at least the 3rd consecutive spring we've gone through this is making my wife concerned that we have a serious problem. Tonight I asked her how many--she said she's squashing 9 or 10 a day. Which to me, doesn't sound bad. But she's obviously more concerned than I am. I just don't think it's time to get in an exterminator for $800 or whatever in treatments, and what I'm doing each year is enough. (And this year, I'm determined to find the nest that is sending foragers into our house!)
So....does it sound like I'm underreacting? Any advice at this point?
Thanks!
Dante
Longer version: Basically, for the past few years, every spring we start seeing ants, mainly in the attic. Not a huge amount, but enough to want to do something about it. So each spring about this time of year, I've gone outside with a flashlight and find a trail or two coming to the house. I go with diatomaceous earth, boric acid powder; maybe a spray too; and then they go away. Until the next spring.
Seems to me a seasonal pattern, and each year foraging ants find a new way into the home. Unless we have nests inside and these are foragers going out and not in! (I know correlation does not necessarily mean causation, and it's possible that my treatments are doing nothing and the ants would naturally wind down after springtime.)
We had a particularly wet spring here in NE Ohio, so that may be increasing ant activity inside our house now in 2011. That coupled with this being at least the 3rd consecutive spring we've gone through this is making my wife concerned that we have a serious problem. Tonight I asked her how many--she said she's squashing 9 or 10 a day. Which to me, doesn't sound bad. But she's obviously more concerned than I am. I just don't think it's time to get in an exterminator for $800 or whatever in treatments, and what I'm doing each year is enough. (And this year, I'm determined to find the nest that is sending foragers into our house!)
So....does it sound like I'm underreacting? Any advice at this point?
Thanks!
Dante