Cheddar Pinks, Frass Mystery

 

The cheddar pinks are opening a bit earlier this year than last year. My neighbors' peonies also seem to be slightly ahead in maturation though they have not bloomed yet.

Last Friday evening (May 1st) as I headed down the hall to my bedroom, something next to the bookcase in the hall caught my eye. It looked like a pile of dirt though I guess the proper name is frass. 

We waited until the next morning to take everything off of the bookcase.

I guess now is a good time to sort through and discard/donate items before lugging them from the den back to the bookcase.

What we found when we moved the bookcase out of the corner where it has stood for over 14 years was more frass.

We notified our maintenance department. We were told they would come look at it, possibly spray, then we would be put on the list for when the contracted pest control company comes again the end of May. So far (Wednesday), no maintenance personnel has shown up.

 We finally called the pest control company ourselves. That means we would be paying for the house call. We had noticed some damage on the back side of the bookcase next to the infested wall. We were concerned.

The lady on the phone asked us to send photos to them. On the return call this morning, she said they felt the frass was just from ordinary ants and that the "scooping out" of the bookcase wood was probably done at another time. She said to just clean up the frass and spray with ordinary ant spray which we did after lunch today. No charge for the advice.

 I will sort through the books tonight because tomorrow my housecleaner comes and it would be good to have the cedar chest in the den cleaned off.