CAPE CORAL, Fla. — One Cape Coral woman had enough after a mysterious pile of dirt inside her home kept reappearing. Turns out it’s Big-headed ants.
“I was scrubbing the floor and it looked like coffee grounds were kind of like sand,” Kim Vining said.
Vining has been in Cape Coral for a couple of years now and she is still learning some things about the area, but this really stumped her.
When she was cleaning up the baseboards of her laundry room, she saw a small pile of dirt.
“I took a wet paper towel and picked it up and really looked at it and thought ‘this is weird, it really looks like sand,’” Vining said.
She did not think much else of it. But then a few days later, the strange pile returned.
Could it be termites she thought?
“I’ve used bleach and pine-sol…it won’t go away,” she said.
Her laundry room wall faces the outside of her house. She came out to see what could be creating this mess, but she really could not spot a thing. So she called in the experts.
“Big heads…slim body, is yellowish brown, about 3 to 4 mm long,” Steve Gitlin said, describing the insect causing the harm.
He is a branch manager for Truly Nolen. He calls these things leaving the dirt behind, Big-headed ants.
“Big-headed ants living under the surface,” Gitlin said. “You have to somehow get product around their homes and on the ground, a lot of times they are non-repellent so they will pick that up and take that back to their colony and kill it off.”
He said they do not cause damage, they are just a nuisance.
“They are not that difficult to get rid of,” he said.
Gitlin said they are showing up more now because it is ant season.
“Definitely the heat has a lot to do with it because they [insects] are much like humans, if it’s too hot outside, they want inside,” he said.
If you see piles like these in your home, call an expert.
“I’d recommend everybody, if you have a crack around the baseboard or around the floor, seal it up — don’t leave it there because it’s just an invitation for bugs to come straight inside,” he said.
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