A plague o' my house?

August 4, 2008 6:17 AM

What might be causing the things seen here in this photo and this photo?

The stuff in the first photo kind of looks like an amalgamation of insect...stuff, for lack of a better term.

The second photo looks like droppings to me.

Both photos were taken no more than a foot away from each other, and the wall seen above the baseboard in photo 1 is an external wall in the house. We haven't ever come across either of these things anywhere else in the house.

Has anyone every seen the likes of what's in the photos?

How do I prevent whatever it is from accumulating any more?

posted by mrhaydel to Home & Garden (9 answers total)

A tad hard to tell from the pix, but my guess is that you have carpenter ants. See info and links here. They live in your walls, eating wood, and are ejecting parts of dead insects as well as wood chewings. Call an exterminator.
posted by beagle at 6:39 AM on August 4, 2008

My friend has a termite problem, which he discovered when he had piles of dead insects accumulate on his floor after cleaning his floor with bleach. He says the first photo looks just like his piles did.
posted by ootsocsid at 6:44 AM on August 4, 2008

I would guess carpenter ants as well, call a professional, they can do significant damage.
posted by HuronBob at 7:07 AM on August 4, 2008

Nth'ing bugs in the walls - either termites or carpenter ants.
posted by bitdamaged at 7:57 AM on August 4, 2008

Yup. Carpenter ants. They're in your walls. You'll need a professional exterminator to do a thorough job...inside and out.
posted by Thorzdad at 8:59 AM on August 4, 2008

Photo #2, a little left of center... There's a few of the red 'things,' and then something black. I'm positive it has legs. Does anyone else see a tick or small spider in that?
posted by fogster at 9:39 AM on August 4, 2008

Could be. The thing is, carpenter ants also eat other insects and throw out parts of them with their trash, which is called frass and consists of wood chewings and dead critter parts.
posted by beagle at 9:58 AM on August 4, 2008

photo #2 looks like mouse poop to me. i bet you have several kinds of unofficial pets!
posted by sergeant sandwich at 6:07 PM on August 4, 2008

Thanks everyone for their input as to what it might be.

Seems like the consensus is really that we just need to call an exterminator.

Thanks again Hive Mind.
posted by mrhaydel at 2:10 PM on August 5, 2008