Dear Blog, I have started to try to figure this out but any more suggestions would be gratefully received (not my personal faucet)
Q: I was wondering if anyone other than myself has had a problem with ants coming out of the faucet in the bathtub? This has happened two times. I talked to our contracted pest control about it, they seem to think we would have to get in touch with the city water company... When I turned the water on today, about 100 tiny ants came out!
A: The PBCWUD will probably charge extra for providing ants.
A: Could the ants have colonised a drain vent?
Questions and a couple of thoughts, Elaine, from an old short-term pest control person.
ReplyDeleteDid the ants come out of the faucet or from AROUND it? If from within it, had the faucet not been in use for a period of time, say a month or more?
Ants and roaches go for food, warmth, and dampness. It is not at all uncommon for roaches to come up a drainpipe with no trap or a dried-out trap.
This is why snowbirds should cover their drains with SaranWrap when leaving in the spring. It's not that the SaranWrap is a barrier to the insects. It's to prevent the water in the traps from evaporating and thus providing the insects with moisture--and then, incidentally, an open passageway. (They don't normally go through a complete water barrier, as posed by a trap full of water.)
My guess is the ants got a little colony going in the pipe, even though not a drainpipe, just as you suggest. You flushed them out, and this should be the end of them--UNLESS.....
.......When the ants came out, they weren't by any chance in a kind of military formation, were they? You didn't notice one or two of the lead ants carrying tiny pennants, did you? Please let me know right away if by any chance this was the case.
For they could be the now infamous Faucet Ants, which Dave alludes to in his post. This would make it a very serious matter.
ReplyDeleteSomebody is doing mushrooms again!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteLanny, its not my faucet. The owner is person who uses faucet everyday (not snowbird), ants definitely come from inside faucet.
ReplyDeleteI suppose you could seal around the faucet and can of Raid (or somesuch) nozzle and blast away(or somesuch). Rinse before showering.
Hi, If you google 'ants in faucet' you will get all kinds of advice. You are not alone.
ReplyDeleteIn general people seem to think ants come from somewhere else in bathroom and are searching for water in the faucet. So bait can get rid of them but it takes time to get back to the queen, you can always shower in the clubhouse while it works.
Should'a googled first!!
I think eliotj has hit the nail on the head with his suggested explanation from Googling. The ants have come from somewhere else and explored the inside of the faucet because of the moisture there, and yes, a bait would probably eventually get rid of them. But where apply the bait? AROUND the faucet perhaps...
ReplyDelete