Jay,

the chemical sprayed on the house foundation might have washed
away by rain prematurely

Or, it just stopped working... I sprayed some areas indoors and out fairly
heavily when we first noticed the carpenter ants. It was just typical over-
the-count ant spray, but it "claimed" it protected for 12 months! Of
course, 3 days later, the ants were walking all over the areas I had
sprayed earlier.

Whatever they have done, I can do this myself by researching on
this issue and by mail ordering the right chemical through internet
I hate wasting time waiting at home for the bug people to come.
If I have to give them advice to do this the right way,
I really wonder why I hire them for.

Yep, that's the same experiences I've had for most anything I've hired out
for. So, I do everything myself unless I absolutely, positively, HAVE to
hire something out.

In any case, I've noticed a dramatic decrease in the number of ants around
our house the last couple of days. Originally they had been coming in
virtually every crack and crevice, I could hear them in the ceiling, and I
could see numerous trails of ants running in the yard, on the side of the
house, etc. I tried following the trail to the nest, but it went off into
the brush I couldn't track it further.

Anyway, I had sprayed around the house, including down in the crawlspace
with regular ant spray. Then I installed a package of "Grants" ant control
spikes near the areas I was seeing the ants. They went crazy with it the
first day, but afterwards seemed to ignore them.

In any case, it seems something is working, at least temporarily. The ant
trails are gone, and I've only seen a few random ants in the house. There
was still a fair number of ants crawling around on the front of the house,
but those too have been declining over the last couple of days.

So, I don't know if all the ant control stuff is working, or if the ants
simply moved on somewhere else. Either way, as long as they're not in our
house, I'm satisfied. If they flare up again, I'll probably order some of
the chemicals online and try those.

Ants are fascinating though. They had a trail that came from the brush in
the forest, into our storage shed, up through the rafters of the shed, back
down the opposite wall, along the ground to the house, up the house wall,
up to the peak of the gable end wall, back down the opposite side, and into
the house. Then another trail came down the opposite gable end wall, and
down to the ground again where they seemed to disperse. I don't know if
this was all a single line of ants, but they were certainly on a mission...


Anthony