Mortar Powdered near a Window. Is It Some Pest ?

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  iamherenow on 05/12/2021 - 09:36

  +1

  Rain?

  • 

    thebossmel on 05/12/2021 - 09:53

    No. Its under covered area.

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  Hithere on 05/12/2021 - 09:48

  Could be caused mortar bees.

  Just spray the area with surface spray or any insecticide, if that's what's causing the damage.

  • 

    thebossmel on 05/12/2021 - 09:59

    Thanks. It might be this. I saw this dead bee nearby.
    Does it look like mortar bee?

    https://files.ozbargain.com.au/upload/296216/92818/f66ae82d-…

    • 

      Hithere on 05/12/2021 - 10:41

      Does it look like mortar bee?

      You'll have to let Professor Google decide, it does to me though.

      • 

        vinnychase on 05/12/2021 - 12:12

        +1

        no need for insecticide if the issue is indeed mortar bees as they don't cause noticeable damage and also I think we need all the bees we can get.

  • 

    pegaxs on 05/12/2021 - 13:39

    Lol… Mortar bees…

    Sure it wasn't hard rock termites?

    While Mortar (masonry) bees are real, they don't go around destroying houses to rob them of their precious bricks and mortar.

    And great idea to indiscriminately spray around insecticide to kill bees… Reminds me of a job I got at school the other day where the deputy principal asked me to "poison" all the bees on the back oval on the off chance that one of the bees was to "bite" a child.

  • 

    scottishdave on 05/12/2021 - 15:34

    I have small ants that do the same thing

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  elgrande on 05/12/2021 - 10:33

  +7

  Knockdown rebuild is the only option at this point.

  • 

    subywagon on 05/12/2021 - 11:23

    +1

    Don't forget bikies!

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  Russ on 05/12/2021 - 15:15

  +2

  OP, your pictures show the mortar as being roughly the colour of sand. Usually mortar is more like the colour of concrete. Some brickies put too little cement and lime in the mortar mix, resulting in sand-coloured mortar.

  Because such mortar has less cement+lime, it is also crumbly. Get a bit of wood that will fit between the bricks, and scrub at the mortar. If more mortar powder comes off, you have crumbly mortar, and the powder you are seeing is probably because of thermal expansion and contraction of the bricks.

  • 

    weezlebub on 06/12/2021 - 10:36

    this seems about right … animals wouldn't make little piles of roughly the same size, so it's likely an issue (however minor) with the building materials used … hose it off, give it a light scrub / scratch … if the mortar just falls away (all of it) then they've used sand instead of mortar … i'm guessing it's a relatively new build, so some loss is to be expected …