Oct 9, 2009 8:39 pm US/Central
Heavy Rain Sends Ants To The Surface & Into Houses
Reporting
Jack Fink
NORTH TEXAS (CBS 11 / TXA 21) ―
All of the recent rains have caused at least one problem that's bugging lots of people: ants. Ant mounds have surfaced on yards and the insects are invading people's houses.
With all the rain, North Texas pest control companies say they've been
flooded with calls. Experts say the problem is fire ants mounds have started popping up on lawns and in landscaping beds. Then, people start seeing the ants inside their houses.
Casey Cochran says the pest control firm he works for has seen a steady rise in calls complaining about ants. He visited one house in Grapevine that had all sorts of fire ant hills. The insects were on the front path, in the front lawn, and even up against the house.
Since the ground is saturated with water, the ants are moving above ground to keep from drowning. "The population has probably tripled with all the rain we had recently. Ants are everywhere," Cochran said.
At one North Texas house ants were crawling through weep holes and had even gotten into the shower. "Ooh yuck," said homeowner Shelly Miland. "You don't want ants coming into the house. And I knew when I saw them coming in, we had a problem."
Cochran says if you find ants inside your house don't take matters into your own hands and use a spray. "You're going to kill what you see, but you're going to make the problem a lot worse and it's going to be more expensive in the long run," he said.
Cochran says if you use a can spray, like Raid, inside your house, you'll kill the ants there, but not those in the
nest where the queen is. If the queen survives, she can move her nest and produce more worker ants to find food.
Besides all of the ants, pest control companies say there are also a lot of mosquitoes buzzing around North Texas. The two-winged insects are breeding in the standing water left from the rain.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
Click to enlarge
Stumble It!
