Ant Farm behind our Liner!!!

[bboehm]

Just had a brand new liner installed and my wife noticed all along one side of the pool what felt like tiny rocks/pebbles all along the top (behind the liner). I complained to our PB and one of his guys that was involved with the liner install pulled back a section of the liner to look behind it and found ants crawling all around. Evidently, there is an ant farm in the dirt underneath the cement walkway around the pool and those nasty critters have squirmed their way between the wall panels (side wall panels of our pool) and have pushed tiny rocks/pebbles between the wall and the liner. Unfortunately, some of the pebbles have worked their way down to the bottom of the pool and I am now extremely concerned that those pebbles are going to eventually cause holes in the liner (especially the ones on the bottom). PB is coming back out on Thursday to discuss further but am curious if any of you out there have ever heard of anyone else with this sort of problem.

I am afraid that the only way to fix it is to drain the pool, take out the liner, clean out all the pebbles, and try to somehow seal the wall panels.

Should I consult with an exterminator also?

Any suggestions or ideas on how to deal with this would be much appreciated.

PS
This is a Pacific Pool (www.pacificpools.com). I may try them as well to see what they recommend.

 

[frustratedpoolmom]

Save some money on the exterminator, and try to pour some ant killer, perhaps the powered form, between the liner and the wall.

Good luck, sounds like you have your hands full. :grrrr:

 

[bboehm]

Thanks. I will most likely have them pull the liner back all along the wall and use a shop vac with one of those slim attachments to try to suck as much of it out as they can and then treat it with the powdered ant killer. Just want to make sure first that the ant powder won't harm the liner in anyway. Maybe also have them try to seal the wall panels with a silicone bead.

My PB says it's the first time in all his 20+ years of installing liner pools that he's ever seen this. Just my luck

 

[frustratedpoolmom]

Our ants this year have been terrible. We get some every year, but nothing we can't handle. This year tho, we've been fighting them in our basement laundry room for a week now, every day there's more and more, and some with wings, and we can't find where they are coming in.

 

[TizMe]

Re: Ant Farm behind our Liner!!

An old camping trick I used is to sprinkle comet around every part of the camper that "touches" the ground (Tires, leveling jacks, trailer tonuge etc) Supposedly ants wont crawl through comet or any other "bleach" based product. I have had good luck so far ! In the case of the pool our PB told us to get some ant bait/ poison and sprinkle it on the sand inside and around the pool and that should take care of them

Good luck!