Outsider on the Inside
Ants among us
Jul 14, 2009
For the last month or so I have been battling a carpenter ant infestation. These critters are amazingly resilient to my attempts to eradicate them, and they have managed to build a nest in the roof wood above my kitchen.
Photo © 2009 Stan Brewer
Column by Shoshana Hebshi
For the last month or so I have been battling a carpenter ant infestation. These critters are amazingly resilient to my attempts to eradicate them, and they have managed to build a nest in the roof wood above my kitchen.
I’ve had help from Dave “The Bug Man” Harris and his arsenal of toxic gasses and sprays, but time and time again they continue to thwart us, and I am at a loss.
Being from California and never owning a home before has left me a neophyte with this scenario. The bugs I battled within my various residences up and down the Golden State were merely the occasional spider, a line of measly ants and these tiny little carpet bugs that were annoying but didn’t threaten to cause structural damage to my home.
I am terrified of what these ants are doing up there in the wood fiber of my roof. I imagine them multiplying faster than the sweat beads on my forehead during a particularly hot and humid summer day. In this case, my fear stems from the unknown.
So I’ve done a little bit of research. Carpenter ants, Camponotus pennsylvanicus, are the no. 1 pest in Ohio. And worker ants can be up to a half-inch long! Also, workers can forage up to 100 feet from their nest. My own battles with them (in my kitchen) have taught me that when you whack them with a shoe hard enough you can actually hear their abdomens burst. But it usually takes several good whacks to snuff out a single ant. This may seem morbid, but for someone who is generally sent into hysterics by swarming insects I feel very brave for having combated this infestation.
Moving to Iowa has overall provided a huge leap in confidence for me over bugs. There are just so many more here that have to be dealt with. It helps that Dave The Bug Man comes to spray around the house and in the basement in the spring and sometimes during the summer. This takes care of initial bug proliferation. But I have been truly amazed at the variety and size of the bugs here.
First there was the house centipede I discovered during a mid-sleep trip to the bathroom around 2 a.m. the first summer we lived here. Then there was the enormous (by anyone’s proportions) spider that covertly blended into our decorative rocks outside where my children were playing and was so scary that I had to call my 70-year-old ex-marine neighbor over to smash it with a rock. Now it’s the carpenter ants.
According to entymologist Larry Pedigo there are 200 million insects to every human on the planet, so it’s no wonder so many of them exist in Iowa, which seems to have ripe conditions for tall corn, college football pride, good schools and an explosive bug population.
Not all of this is bad, though. My twin 3-year-old sons have become excellent firefly catchers this summer. Just last night they each captured four in their bug cages and brought them inside for the night. There are no fireflies in California, so this is a special treat.
But the ants. I do not like the ants. I’ve come to realize that having a good exterminator is as important as having a good dentist. But I hope Dave The Bug Man will not have to show his face around here any more this summer.
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Shoshana Hebshi took a biology class during her undergraduate studies that required her to catch, kill, identify and mount about 30 insects from different orders, and she wishes she had kept her bug net to chase butterflies when she is not blogging at http://shebshi.wordpress.com
