#268845 - 06/11/2005 02:46
Re: bugs...
[Re: DWallach]
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addict
Registered: 10/11/2000
Posts: 497
Loc: Utah, USA
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I have no idea what to tell you about your problem, but thought I'd just pipe up to say that the pictures are cool...
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-Aaron
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#268846 - 06/11/2005 02:49
Re: bugs...
[Re: DWallach]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 15/01/2002
Posts: 1866
Loc: Austin
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If you vacuum live ants be sure to dump the bag right away.
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#268847 - 06/11/2005 03:04
Re: bugs...
[Re: DWallach]
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old hand
Registered: 15/02/2002
Posts: 1049
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You need to get yourself some Terro ant poison. This stuff works like a charm and is great fun to use. You put a quarter-sized blob of this stuff on some foil or wax paper and prod at an ant until he starts to drink it. He'll drink that yummy stuff until he's about twice his normal size. Afterwards, he goes back to the nest and tells all his buddies about the gourmet feast. After a couple of hours, you'll have a trail of hundreds of ants going to the blob. I usually put out a couple more blobs because there will be so many ants drinking at the first one that others can't join in. No more ant problem. Jim
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#268848 - 06/11/2005 03:17
Re: bugs...
[Re: adavidw]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 30/04/2000
Posts: 3810
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Quote: the pictures are cool...
I knew there was a reason I bought a macro lens. It's fantastically difficult to shoot with it focused all the way in at 1:1 (e.g., just forget about autofocus offering any meaningful help), but the results are certainly fun. That second ant is a crop of the image, zoomed out to 100%, with the sharpening cranked up. Entertaining thought: with the lens set to 1:1 macro, you can easily convert from pixels to normal length units. From that, the cropped ant is about 5mm from head to tail (24mm/sensor * 678 pixels / 3008 pixels/sensor = 5.36mm).
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#268849 - 06/11/2005 04:13
Re: bugs...
[Re: DWallach]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 19/09/2002
Posts: 2494
Loc: East Coast, USA
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Are they streaming in a nice little line? Maybe there's a food source you need to eliminate, along with eliminating the hole.
Whenever I have bug problems (quite often), eliminating whatever food source they're after makes them go away. Of course, they may be going into my walls, harmfully out of sight. But they're away.
I've got some serious insect problems.......
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#268850 - 06/11/2005 04:16
Re: bugs...
[Re: FireFox31]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 30/04/2000
Posts: 3810
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Definitely the nice line that traces from window to shower. What's unclear is whether the food is outside and the nest is inside, or vice versa. There *shouldn't* be food inside the walls, unless the walls themselves are food. So far as I can tell, I'm looking at ants, not termites, right?
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#268851 - 06/11/2005 11:04
Re: bugs...
[Re: DWallach]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 16/06/2000
Posts: 1682
Loc: Greenhills, Ohio
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There are carpenter ants that can also damage wood. I'm not sure what the different kind of ants look like but you could take one to a company that deals with bugs and find out.
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Laura
MKI #017/90
whatever
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#268852 - 06/11/2005 16:04
Re: bugs...
[Re: DWallach]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 06/04/2005
Posts: 2026
Loc: Seattle transplant
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10101311 (20GB- backup empeg) 10101466 (2x60GB, Eutronix/GreenLights Blue) (Stolen!)
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#268853 - 06/11/2005 19:37
Re: bugs...
[Re: Robotic]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 30/04/2000
Posts: 3810
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This image from termite-i makes me feel much better: From that diagram, I'm confident that I'm at least dealing with ants and not termites.
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#268854 - 07/11/2005 13:27
Re: bugs...
[Re: DWallach]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
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They look like carpenter ants to me. Nearly as bad as termites. Call an exterminator before they destroy more of your house.
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Bitt Faulk
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#268855 - 07/11/2005 14:35
Re: bugs...
[Re: wfaulk]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 30/04/2000
Posts: 3810
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Carpenter ants are bigger than these. Also, there are some nice web pages (like this one at UMN) that seem to indicate that I'm not looking at carpenter ants. Nonetheless, given that they're swarming into my shower, it's almost certainly the case that moisture from the shower is getting into the wood behind the shower and they're nesting back there (ant larvae apparently like moisture). The cheap answer is to get an exterminator to pipe poisonous dust into the wall. The expensive answer is to tear out and rebuild the shower.
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#268856 - 07/11/2005 23:20
Re: bugs...
[Re: DWallach]
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old hand
Registered: 15/02/2002
Posts: 1049
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#268857 - 08/11/2005 00:46
Re: bugs...
[Re: TigerJimmy]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 17/12/2000
Posts: 2665
Loc: Manteca, California
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For immediate relief I've found that the EXPO brand of white board spray cleaner makes an excellent insecticide. Dose away with the chemical trails as well.
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Glenn
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#268858 - 08/11/2005 04:34
Re: bugs...
[Re: TigerJimmy]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 13/02/2002
Posts: 3212
Loc: Portland, OR
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Quote: Use the Terro. It works.
As a cat owner, I have a lot of difficulty using insecticides indoors, as a result. I never know what my cats will decide to play with, eat, walk through (and then lick clean), etc. IIRC, Dan has cats. I wish there were a non-poisonous solution that worked as well. The only things I've found that works is... nothing, really. I find a trail, and follow it back to where the ants are coming in, and fill it with silicone tub/tile sealant. Repeat ad nauseum, as they find the next hole. In my old apartment, I smeared olive oil around the baseboards, ceiling, and where the cupboards met walls -- the type of ants I had didn't like to cross the oil. It kept the ants out of the kitchen, but it didn't solve the real problem (of course, it's really the landlord's problem). That won't work on all ants, though, since some eat grease.
Oh, and sometimes ants can be a good thing -- I found one trail of ants leading to... a termite hole. They were dragging termite bodys along.
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#268859 - 05/12/2005 21:53
Re: bugs...
[Re: Robotic]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 06/04/2005
Posts: 2026
Loc: Seattle transplant
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another referrence- This Is True featured http://www.whatsthatbug.com/ as a 'bonzer website' (a good thing) this week. Thought I'd add it to support the empeg knowledge base.
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10101311 (20GB- backup empeg) 10101466 (2x60GB, Eutronix/GreenLights Blue) (Stolen!)
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