Subject: flicker problem
Date: Apr 15 23:57:27 2001
From: Allyn Weaks - allyn. at tardigrade.net


At 10.13 AM -0700 15/4/01, Bruce McKenzie wrote:

>We discovered Carpenter ants in a wall last
>year while replacing the siding. We had Orkin (main office is in Fife,
>1-800-562-5610) come out and take care of the ants. Was about $300 to take
>care of the ants and to spray around the foundation ever other month for a
>year.

I hope you also took care of your structural problem. You definately
have a problem such as a leak or the ants wouldn't be there. Carpenter
ants will only nest in soft, easy to chew wood, usually damp wood.
They don't eat wood, they only tunnel in it, and they they do very
little structural damage compared to whatever is weakening the wood in
the first place. If you fix that, the ants will leave on their own
when the wood dries out, no pesticide needed. If you don't fix it,
more ants will simply discover that nice soft nesting spot and you'll
be paying orkin in perpetuity (well, until the siding falls off or the
house falls down!)

> stressed
>the pesticide they use would only harm the ants.

If you _really_ want to know about a pesticide that someone wants to
use on you or your property, ask for the MSDS (Material Safety Data
Sheets) sheets for what they're using. They'll probably
protest--anything from denying that such a thing exists, to saying that
you wouldn't understand it anyway, to saying that sure, they'll send
'em, but they never appear. Insist--they're required by law to give
you copies. If they continue to refuse or bungle, report them for the
violation and take your business elsewhere.

The MSDS won't tell you much of what you need to know (it's basically
how to handle the stuff without poisoning yourself, with a summary of
some of the possible human health effects). But it will give the real,
unambiguous, name of the pesticide, which you can then look up on the
web. An excellent starting point is Extoxnet, sponsored by a
consortium of universities <http://ace.orst.edu/info/extoxnet/>. They
have clearly written summaries of most currently legal pesticides,
including how they break down in the environment, how long it takes,
how toxic the breakdown products are, how likely they are to percolate
into ground water, what the effects are on various types of animals
(including dogs, birds, aquatic organisms), and more. Extoxnet is a
relatively unbiased source of information--not completely unbiased
because many of the test results they summarize are by necessity from
the industry sponsored research required to get an EPA rating, because
that's all there is in some cases. Such industry research has
sometimes been, um, tainted. But it's a _lot_ more reliable than a
vested interest who's directly trying to sell you something (that you
didn't need--what you needed was advice to call in a
contractor/inspector promptly and not worry about the ants, but if
they'd told you that, they couldn't have sold you their 'service'.)


>We can attest to the fact the spiders were not affected by the pesticide.
>Rather wishing we had chosen to get rid of them as well with the number that
>came inside this year, probably wondering what happened to their food source
>(the ants).

It's unlikely that most of your spiders have any interest in ants,
which are a tough prey on the whole. Spiders getting in is a sign of
autumn wanderings plus poor weatherproofing, especially near ground
level. Caulk all cracks carefully, and otherwise improve your
weatherproofing, and you'll have a lot fewer spiders and other
multilegged critters inside. (I haven't done it, because bugs keep the
cats amused :-))
--
Allyn Weaks allyn at tardigrade.net
Seattle, WA Sunset zone 5
Pacific NW Native Wildlife Gardening: http://www.tardigrade.org/natives/