Ants and black mold, OH MY!!

[Tonkaman]

I entered my shower last night and my attention was immediately drawn to something strange. There were tiny piles of debris all along the metal door frame. Each of the weep holes had what looked like little tailings piles built up around them. A closer look with a flashlight showed tiny black ants were the ones doing the excavation.

This morning I decided to pull the shower frame apart and be rid of the ants. There were dozens of them! As I was pulling the last bit of frame away from the walls I noticed the ants were finding places to hide behind the silicone joints of the shower panels. I started pulling the shower panels apart only to find hundreds of ants behind each one.

Things turned worse when my quest for ants turned into a discovery of black mold! Those little tunnels in the silicone has been allowing water to get behind the shower panels. The bottoms of the drywall was all black!

I'm at a turning point now. I need to decide if I should dig deeper or treat what is visible and rebuild. My gut says to remove the shower pan and surrounding tiles to investigate any more ant or mold issues. I just don't know if it will be worth the extra effort. To remove the shower pan I have to access the bottom of the drain, which means cutting a hole in the ceiling downstairs. It's also likely I'll break the tiles that need removed so there will be the trouble of finding matches and cutting them to size.

What should I do? Turn a blind eye or be diligent?

 

[jeeper]

Bummer dude! I think that you have gone very far, be worth it to finish right. Can we cut the tile back just a couple inches to allow the pan to come out?

 

[mbryson]

You have to keep going. Cut the tile just enough to fit a contrasting piece as a border

 

[Tonkaman]

Bummer dude! I think that you have gone very far, be worth it to finish right. Can we cut the tile back just a couple inches to allow the pan to come out?

The tile would need to come up to see how the subfloor under them looks. There is definitely black at the edge of the tile where the shower panels butted up to them.

If I cut the grout lines all the way through the mortar could I reuse the tiles?

 

[TRD270]

That sucks, bad news. I had the same symptoms, stupid black ants I couldn't figure out where they were coming from, and occasional mold showing up. When we finally got around to renovating the bathroom I discovered most of my sub floor was rotten/ destroyed by ants. If you're planning to stay in the house awhile I'd vote demo until you find good material, don't band aid it or you'll just have to fix it again later.

 

[Tonkaman]

That sucks, bad news. I had the same symptoms, stupid black ants I couldn't figure out where they were coming from, and occasional mold showing up. When we finally got around to renovating the bathroom I discovered most of my sub floor was rotten/ destroyed by ants. If you're planning to stay in the house awhile I'd vote demo until you find good material, don't band aid it or you'll just have to fix it again later.

Is the mold their food source? Is it moldy because they are in there? What's the correlation?

 

[rholbrook]

Some of those drains will unscrew from the pipe so you may not have to cut a hole in the basement ceiling

 

[TRD270]

Is the mold their food source? Is it moldy because they are in there? What's the correlation?

They didn't seem to have anything to do with the mold, the vast majority of the colony was just in the wet wood, not necessarily where the mold was.

Also mine were the big ants, about half of them had wings. I was nervous at first because I thought they were termites

 

[moab_cj5]

Bummer deal. I too would keep going until you get to good material.

 

[Tonkaman]

Some of those drains will unscrew from the pipe so you may not have to cut a hole in the basement ceiling

I got a good look at it last night. It is definitely the 2 piece style with the nut on the bottom☹️

 

[Tonkaman]

Well I'm glad I asked the question before diving in. I have a tendency to over think things, and didn't want to rip out half my bathroom just to find out I didn't need to.

Thanks for the input guys. If you don't hear from me again, I've fallen to a black hole of death under my tile....

 

[Tonkaman]

Lifted the shower pan to find a few hundred more ants eager to escape.

Here is a close up of the tile edge that used to butt up to the shower pan. Zoom in to see ants piled up high

I learned a new word today: Frass. That's the official word for ant poop. In this case it's rotten wood that has gone in and back out of an ants digestive system.

I have a diamond blade for the angle grinder so I decided to cut along the grout lines to help the tiles come up while. Then I pushed 2 4" chisels under the tile equally till they lifted up

Obviously the ant problem is all the way across my tile floor. The mold seems to be confined near the shower but could be running along the tub as well.

 

[mbryson]

You're doing the right thing. It's not fun, but it's the right way to do it

 

[Tonkaman]

At this point I think I need to have a conversation with my insurance agent. I have no idea if it's the right thing to do but if I keep chasing ants my repair bill is going to start getting expensive. I honestly have no idea if they will cover an ant invasion or this mold but I feel like I need to ask.

Anyone know how much making a claim will hurt me long term?

 

[Tonkaman]

Meanwhile in the basement this was happening.

Who knows how long this has been leaking. I never go in my basement, but luckily the ant invasion made me go looking around.

 

[mbryson]

We have made two claims for home damage within 4 years. One for water, one for wind. We were told if there was another within a couple years after that, we'd be "difficult " to insure. I'd Try your agent. Their JOB is to work for you and help you decide what to do for this kind of stuff.

 

[glockman]

Shark Bite brewhaha. Sorry couldn't help it. This sucks man. Hope finding the broken fitting saved you a bigger mess in the future.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G890A using Tapatalk

 

[Tonkaman]

I talked to the insurance company yesterday. We mostly went over the hypothetical pros and cons of making a claim

. She said generally unless the claim is more than double the deductible it would not be worth it.

She also stressed that it would not be covered if they found it to be a maintenance issue that caused the water where it didn't belong. Since there wasn't any catastrophic event that caused this it wouldn't likely be covered.

In regards to the ants and the mold she really wasn't concerned. She gave me pointers on how to take care of both and assured me that handling it on my own wouldn't make me liable in any future claims.

All in all I felt good about the conversation. I never felt like she was steering me away from making acclaim, mostly just giving me inside perspective on how they would look at things. She gave me a few phone numbers to some restoration companies that can come out and tell me how big the problems are and whether insurance would cover it.

I'm not going to file a claim but I'm glad I asked a few questions first. Now I have to decide if I want to rebuild cheap and easy or go for my dream shower....

 

[jeeper]

Huge shower, double heads, and one head from the ceiling!

 

[Gravy]

Keep demoing until you get to clean material. Just think, your wife will love the new bathroom and you're off the hook for the next birthday/ holiday.