A large colony of ants can leave the root system of a plant (or plants) high and dry, causing serious problems for anything from annuals to woody perennials. Some sweet feeders will bite though a plant's nectar tissues for a short cut trip to sweetness. There are other ways that ants can cause problems, too. I've seen them fight off lady bugs, for example. Heck, I've had them swarm ME when I was attempting to remove some Calico scale insects from a young elm! Anyway, kmbustos, you need to be very observant. If you simply have an abundance of ants, but they don't seem to be causing any real problems, your best bet might be to leave them alone. If, however, you notice some plants wilting or dieing in association with an ant colony, it's time to do something about it. Sometimes, opportunistic ants can become extremely populous in an area. So much so that they become a problem. It's far better for everyone that the numbers be controlled in such a case. 'Control' does not mean eradicate, kmbustos. Ants serve a purpose. Let your common sense be your guide.

Im not trying to be childish at all it just seems that there are alot of people on this forum that are so critical about random stuff. I apologize for not using punctuation but it seems to me that a garden forum is kind of a dumb place to have a hen pecking contest, Im sorry I am the VP for one of the largest fiber operations in TX leaving me with very minimal time to even post questions much less make sure that all my I's are dotted and T's are crossed, and she didn't even offer any helpful advice it was just blah blah blah I think your stupid and I'm smart because I am ever so eloquent and use punctuation marks big whoop my 4 year old learned that this year. Listen guys I am an extremely hard working business woman who is a mother of four and a leader to many and if this was and email to one of my clients, or sales reps I would make sure all of the punctuation marks that were necessary were there and I had sectioned my thoughts into stanza's and paragraphs but Im doing the best I can with what little time I have life is too short and I can't believe I'm writing this, because this is five minutes of my life spent in trying to offer up some insight to the people on this forum that I feel hide behind their computer and have nothing better to do than to pick fights on local POP servers! So that being said I bid you adue and just know I really dont want to make garden buddies and I will eventually get the help I need I just use this as a reference point, I hope I didn't offend anyone with this post but if I did get over we are all here to do what............ you got it grow some tomatos :) have a good one!

If there were that many inside your house all at one time it could very well have been dry wood termites. have/had you noticed any small sawdust looking mounds any where in your home before this happened? I had a similar experience years ago when I lived in an apartment in Ohio. Before the bugs I kept noticing sawdust under my bedroom door and just thought it was something caused by the new door rubbing on new carpet. When we did research when we saw the swarm we put two and two together-removed the door and took it outside and it was full of termites! This was a new door and apt manager and pest control figured the door was manufactured somewhere in the south since this type of termite was not common where we lived.

Top image looks like a small wasp; bottom image looks like a crane fly.