dirt packed inside walls of house?

Question

In Texas..........we have found dirt packed inside the walls of our house all around the tub and shower. We are pretty sure it was fire ants that brought it in. There are no fire ants in there now, but quite some time ago we had trouble with fire ants coming into the tub.

We had a leak in the plumbing going into the tub is how we found the dirt. We removed a section of sheetrock to get to the leak.

My question is, is all of this dirt harmful to the house or us? There is so much dirt, we would literally have to remove walls and maybe even the tub and shower to get it all out.

Does anyone have any knowledge or experience with this? What should we do?

Obviously James, you're not from the South. Fire ants are not red ants that wander around...not even close. And the dirt we have in our walls is ground soil...not digested wood. If it were from carpenter ants eating the wood, our house wouldn't be standing. I don't mean just a little dirt. My husband hauled out at least 10 - 5 gallon pails full. That was just from the area around the front of the tub...there's still way more. But, like I said, we would have to take out walls and probably the tub and shower to get it all.

Justin...we will probably try doing what you said and suck as much out as we can with the shop vac. We will have to take out sections of sheetrock, and still won't get to it all I'm sure. I'm hoping whats left in there won't hurt anything.

By the way..it's a sandy soil.

Answer 1

Well, I ain't to famil'ur with Texas varmints but around these parts dirt in the walls is usually the work of rats or ground squirles. Fire ants in the the tub don't sound too pleasin' neither. But back to the dirt, best to try to suck it all out as best you can with a shop vac. Dirt will hold moisture and rot ot the wood. Not to mention the mold thing. Good luck.

Answer 2

That dirt you are seeing isnt "Ground Soil" from outside. What those ants have done is drilled and bored into your house 2x4's and that ground up wood eaten and digested looks a lot like dirt, when it fact it is not. I think this is the work of Carpenter Ants and not those Red Ants that wander around.

I would inspect the house 2x4 's to see if the in particular, the "plate" that is next to the concrete foundation is in good order. The newer houses eleminated this Carpenter Ant problem of drilling and boring by using treated lumber bolted to the foundation instead of ordinary fir lumber.

In my case there was a 2x4 plate in an outside stoop and the Carpenter Ants drilled and bored so much in that piece of lumber that it had to be replaced, of course with the new treated lumber the ants will not bore in it. There were nests of millions when we first took off the insulation and had a look, needless to say we were surprised the mess they had made which to us also looked like a powdery dirt but upon careful inspection we realized it was the 2x4 eaten up by the ants.