Holy Crap! Ants in My Basement!!

[matchstick johnny]

I keep my comics in my basement. On the other side of the room I will occasionally find a dead ant and some bits of saw dust on a shelf. Today I decided to pull back the insulation up covering the floor joists. I found about 50 to 100 half inch black ants hanging around on top of the heating duct.

http://pic20.picturetrail.com/VOL1314/4834982/10004444/145925487.jpg

I killed them all with an ant spray that I got at the hardware store. Then I used my shop vac to get rid of them. They didn't appear to be eating the wood(that I can tell by looking). Perhaps they just had a nice comfortable spot on the duct covered in some fluffy insulation?

http://pic20.picturetrail.com/VOL1314/4834982/10004444/145925474.jpg

Anyway, the reason I am posting this here instead of a Home Pest Control message board is because my comics are in the basement. My immediate thought was too pull out all the long boxes and insepect each and every comic to see if any ants made themselves at home in them. I may eventually do this but it is very rare that I see an ant down on the floor nevermind near my comic boxes. The whole thing just kind of freaked me out a bit.

Anyone have any similar experiences with insects and comics?

How much damage can (Carpenter?) and do to a comic book collection?

What would you do?

I am definately going to clean out the basement area and do a major clean up of my comic book room. Ugh!

[CURSD BLADE]

I feel (felt) your pain. There were ants invading my dorm room at the end of the semester. I just moved back home for the summer last week, so I was able to escape them before they had a chance to do any damage to my belongings.

My roommate wasn't very cleanly, often having massive amounts of crumbs and discarded food lying around his part of the (SMALL) dorm room, hence the ants being attracted to our area. I never kept my boxes of comics there, as it was not a necessity, nor was their room for them. I keep them in my room at my parents house. All the weekly releases that I had bought since my freshmen year of college began last August were stashed in my room. A few ants made their way to the stack, but didn't cause any damage to them. These were the tiny black ants though.

[pmpknface]

OH NO!!! :(

Yes, I'd inspect each and every box. Just open them up, empty them out, and put 'em back. If the ones on the bottom are safe, then I bet you're in the clear.

However, If I were you I'd do the following


move all the hobby-related stuff out of the basement
go buy a few of those "bug bombs" that you set off and they fumigate a whole room
air the place out
move the comics back in


"It's the only way to be sure." (That's an Aliens 2 line for ya!) :D

[matchstick johnny]

Actually, I do not think its all that bad. I do not think they have invaded my comic collection. I killed the ceiling dwellers off with TAT ant killer spray. That stuff has risidual action that lasts for 40 days. Take that ants! As I mentioned before, they might have just needed to get out of the rain and the basement ceiling insulation was the comfy bed they were looking for. I am going to put some of those little bait/traps around just in case. I may even spray the outside of the house with sometihng. I checked out the beams and they were solid. I did some online research and discoved that Carpenter ants don't eat wood. i work with someone who used to do exterminator work and he seems to think I took care of my problem. He didn't recommend any bug boms or anything. One or two ants in the house this time of year is normal in Massachusetts..but the colony that I discovered the other day was pretty scary. What it really comes down to is keeping my comics safe!

[Madame Manga]

Your comics probably have a lot more to worry about from silverfish and pillbugs than from ants. At least in my area, but AFAIK you've got those back east too. They loooove paper.

All my stored long boxes are wrapped in thick plastic sheeting, with some moth crystals scattered inside the wrapping, and sealed with electrical tape. Has that worked? Hell if I know; there are some out in the garage I haven't looked at in fifteen years. :D

[pmpknface]

Your comics probably have a lot more to worry about from silverfish and pillbugs than from ants. At least in my area, but AFAIK you've got those back east too. They loooove paper.

All my stored long boxes are wrapped in thick plastic sheeting, with some moth crystals scattered inside the wrapping, and sealed with electrical tape. Has that worked? Hell if I know; there are some out in the garage I haven't looked at in fifteen years. :D
15 years! WoW. What's out there? Do you even remember?

[Madame Manga]

15 years! WoW. What's out there? Do you even remember?

Oh, geez...it's mostly 1970s and 80s Marvel that my husband collected at the time, plus a bit of DC. Spider-Man, Avengers, Defenders, Rom, Dazzler, Fantastic Four, Hulk, Power Man and Iron Fist, Spider-Woman, Micronauts, Punisher, Batman, etc.

Inside the house we keep the manga, all the X-Men titles (we quit in '91 when Claremont initially left and have never picked those up again), Moon Knight (Sienkiewicz), Dreadstar (lots of Starlin work), New Mutants, Teen Titans (Perez), She-Hulk (Byrne), Alpha Flight (Byrne again), Thor (Simonson) Daredevil (Miller), American Flagg (Chaykin), tons of limited series like Kitty Pryde and Wolverine, Dark Knight (yeah, first printing), Elektra: Assassin, Batman Year One, Man of Steel...I think it would take me a year just to catalog everything, and that's only what I can recall off the top of my head.

No, I doubt it's worth mints, because it's all been well-thumbed and most of it's not bagged and boarded. We're not collectors; we just never get rid of anything. :D

MM

[pmpknface]

That's AWESOME! :)