2mo ago

What is this pile inside my window?

It looks like it came from some form of pest, but there are no obvious holes or material above it. It's between glass and a screen with no obvious openings or holes. None of my other windows have it. We did have the house re-insulated recently, but I don't think it looked like this. Any help identifying what's going on?

I'm geographically located in Northern NJ I'm the US in the suburbs.

25 comments

My guess is a carpenter bee, and there is a hole somewhere you didn't notice
- Or a very shitty carpenter gone rogue
  
  Wait, are bees able to spec into rogue?
- Could also be carpenter ants, no?
  
  My guess is it could be The Carpenters. Look for any signs of a Californian soft rock band.
  
  Carpenter ants tend to create little pellets in my experience.
- Seconded
- https://whatsinmyyard.wordpress.com/2015/06/13/a-home-for-bees-part-2/
  Does look like the shavings are similar to this image of shavings from a carpenter bee, to my layman's eye.
This the pollen of the sawdust tree! Quercus alunima. It thrives in moderate, humid climates. It releases pollen that, when aggregated, looks like piles of sawdust. This used to confuse early settlers when they first colonized America. The puritans used to call it 'the devil's sawdust' since it appeared out of nowhere like magic. But the tree is perhaps most famous for not actually existing because I just made all that up.
- Bruh
Maybe the hole is under the pile?
Maybe carpenter ants. At one point I discovered them by a pile of sawdust like that on my coffee table.
It turned out there was enough of a roof leak to cause some rot despite no visible leak symptoms, the ants were following that, and happened to discard the sawdust out a tiny hole in the ceiling above my coffee table. It sucked because that was the signal to replace the roof
I have has that with fireants and the foam in alot of windows and doors. Is it foam bits perhaps?
- It does look like foam to me.
  
  Opps sorry for late reply.
  Yah if its foam then something is digging it out.
  Those piles look like what ants pile up outside their nest, and I have seen fire ants do this several times in the past. Hope you figure it out!
Termites?
- It doesn't look much like termite droppings to me:
  https://www.orkin.com/pests/termites/termite-droppings
  What Do Termite Pellets Look Like?
  Drywood termite pellets are tiny, oval-shaped capsules with six concave sides and rounded ends. These pellets, which are about 1 millimeter in length, can form small mounds beneath kick out holes. The mounds may look like small piles of salt or pepper.
Is there a tree outside the window

25 comments