Behind the Curtain

For the last year my husband and I have noticed water leaking from our bedroom window. Like any young- broke couple, we fixed the problem by 1) laying a towel on the floor under the window to soak up the trickle of water, and 2) forget about it. Last month, I finally decided to pull back the curtain and have a looksy b/c I've felt my allergies have been worse than most winters. Upon said pulling back of curtain, I found peeling paint and splitting drywall. Ulgh. I really didn't want to think about what would be growing behind that.

So after a few reminders my husband finally got down to fixing our wall yesterday. Now, hubby has already laid tile in our bathroom, ripped up most of the old carpet in the house, and completely remodeled our lowest-level room. We figured this little piece of 2x2 wall repair should take only a couple hours at most.

What were we thinking? Home projects never go as planned. We really should have learned that lesson a while ago.

As expected mold was growing on the damp and ruined drywall. I'm sure that was helping my allergy problem. Once my husband had roughly half of the area in need of repair taken down, carpenter ants decided to join the party. Have you even seen movies where insects come swarming out of some hole? That's what I was reminded of... in our bedroom! Talk about freaked out. As hubby starts stomping and smacking, I run out to see if we have any raid. Nope. "Here! Use this disinfectant while I Google what kills ants." (FYI- disinfectant does not kill carpenter ants and just makes you cough b/c you keep spraying and inhaling it).

Needless to say, more of our wall was taken down in order to follow the leak, and find the ant nest. In the end, I slept on the couch last night, hubby didn't quit working until midnight, our wall is not finished, but most of the ants are dead- we think.

Now, I'd really like to share some of our findings on dealing with carpenter ants if you find them in your home and don't have ant killer on hand:

1) To immediately kill carpenter ants (like the ones swarming out of holes) all you need is hot water, vinegar, and peppermint oil/ tea tree oil. Mix equal parts hot water and vinegar and add some drops of peppermint/tea tree oil (i prefer peppermint oil b/c it smells better) into a spray bottle. Spray onto ants.

2) To bait the carpenter ants, mix boric acid (sold as borax in grocery stores) with either a protein food (peanut butter) or sweet food (sugar). Leave this mixture in the ant trail. They will take it back to the nest and in three days all be dead.

*remember to do this, and keep these products, out of reach of children

Lucky for us I had the ingredients for #1. However, I got rid of all the borax in the house b/c of possible health issues it may cause when used for cleaning. So hubby and I did our best to spray and kill all the ants we saw before heading out to buy some heavy duty carpenter ant bait from Lowes. (regular ant traps do not work on carpenter ants- you need to make sure you get the kind specifically made for carpenter ants)

Today, I've only seen 3 ants. It kind of freaks me out when I see one b/c I expect more to be coming right behind it, but no, I think we've taken care of the problem. I hope we can sleep in our room tonight!

Carpenter ants can be black or brown (not to be mistaken for lighter colored termites). They like moist/wet wood in dark spaces (like damp wood inside home walls). Carpenter ants don't actually eat the wood like termites but simply make their nests in it.