Travelers return to insect-infested vehicles at airport

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Charlotte Douglas International Airport officials said it is battling insects that have invaded traveler's cars.

IMAGES: Ant infestation in valet customer's car

Anchor Scott Wickersham spoke to a woman who said thousands of ants were crawling through her car when she got back from a trip.
 
Several more people said they returned to ant-infested cars after leaving them parked at the airport.
 
Officials said they've been battling the ants all summer and one woman said four days ago a colony crawled into the front seat of her car as she was driving home.
 
Martha Hall and her husband got back from vacation Saturday at the airport, got in her car from the curbside valet and she noticed something in her lap.
 
"I looked down and saw an ant and thought, 'Well, that's strange,'" Hall said. "I turned and looked at the console of my car and there was this whole trail of ants."
 
She took photos of the ants that started biting them.
 
"And we got out. They were streaming all through the interior of the car and all over the exterior of the car," Martha Hall said.
 
Hall and her husband spent days vacuuming up ants.

"Charlotte did have problems with ants where cars were parked for curbside valet service. Valet staff stopped parking vehicles in that area months ago. To solve the problem, Charlotte's landscaping manager worked with pesticides to the extent possible due to drainage and has currently built ant traps in that area," said airport officials.
 
But Martha Hall said clearly it's still a problem and she was told the valet parked her car in the daily lot.
 
Another flyer said it recently happened to them in the daily lot, too; another in long-term lot 3 two weeks ago.
 
She said the valet company refunded her parking fees but she's not taking another chance on another ant infestation.
                               
"I don't plan to park there again anytime soon," she said.
 
The airport said it's an ongoing battle against the ants and they've been paying to get people's cars cleaned when it happens.

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