Carpenter ants typically feed on sweets, meats, and small insects. Check your cupboards for potential ant food sources. If you have flour, sugar, cereals, grains, or other foods sitting out or unsealed in your cabinets, these can attract carpenter ants into your home.
Signs of Carpenter Ant Damage and Infestations
Finding piles of wood shavings or sawdust beneath wooden areas like baseboards, door jambs, and window sills. Seeing long ant trails or ant paths on your lawn. Carpenter ants will travel long distances to forage for food and bring it back to the nest.
If you're looking for a nontoxic dust, diatomaceous earth is an effective option. Use boric acid ant baits: Another way to get rid of carpenter ants is buying boric acid at a garden supply store, mixing it with powdered sugar, and applying it where you've seen the ants.
A simple mixture of soap and water is toxic to carpenter ants. Mix one part natural dish soap to two parts water in a spray bottle. Spray as needed to kill ants and eliminate their pheromone trails. Continue to treat problem areas until the ants no longer return.
Carpenter ants dislike strong scents like garlic, lavender, essential oils, and vinegar. These items might seem harmless for the nose of a human, but ants find these smells incredibly irritating. But aside from its irritating smell, vinegar also affects the behavior of carpenter ants.
Each year, carpenter ants become active in the spring (March-April) and remain so through early fall (September-October). A mature carpenter ant colony usually releases reproductive individuals in springtime.
But carpenter ants, the likely culprits, can still create havoc if ignored. One of the nation's most significant wood-damaging insect pests, along with carpenter bees and termites, carpenter ants can cause significant structural damage to your home.
Carpenter ants destroy wood slightly more slowly than termites, but can cause just as expensive damages if left unattended. Over the course of a few years alone, carpenter ants can destroy a home and leave it uninhabitable. These ants chew on soft wood, meaning they can destroy a home's structure from the core up.
Carpenter ants nest in both moist and dry wood, but prefer wood which is moist. Consequently, the nests are more likely to be found in wood dampened by water leaks, such as around sinks, bathtubs, poorly sealed windows/ door frames, roof leaks and poorly flashed chimneys.
Carpenter ants are omnivorous and spend a great deal of time foraging for food to feed not only themselves but the colony as a whole. Ants have many natural predators as well. Some are much larger creatures, such as birds, reptiles, and mammals, but others are fellow arthropods.
Depending on the whereabouts of the ants' colony, structural damage can occur in just a matter of months. Rather than chancing the DIY route to getting rid of carpenter ants, hire a professional exterminator to do the job right for you, and banish these destructive pests forever.
Another way to tell if ants have nested in your wall is by looking for small holes in the drywall. These holes are typically made by carpenter ants, and they're usually about the size of a dime. If you see these holes, it's likely that ants are living inside your walls.
If you see a single reddish or black ant, with a single node between its abdomen and thorax, anywhere inside your home, it is time to be worried about carpenter ants. The singular reason you should worry is because carpenter ants don't always feed inside a house they are infesting.
Termites can cause damage to homes quicker than carpenter ants can, creating significant damage within two to four years. Damage from carpenter ants can take a number of years and is usually easier to detect as these ants hang around areas where there is moisture and can be seen scurrying around.
Carpenter Ants usually come into buildings through cracks around doors, windows, or through plumbing and electrical penetrations in the home. They will also crawl along overhead wires, shrubs, or tree limbs outdoors that touch the building above ground, then enter the home through any small opening.
Each year, carpenter ants become active in the spring (March-April) and remain so through early fall (September-October). A mature carpenter ant colony usually releases reproductive individuals in springtime.
Unfortunately, because carpenter ants can nest deep within the structure of your home, they're difficult to remove on your own. If you haven't had any success with DIY methods, it's better to call a professional exterminator sooner rather than later.
One treatment will generally control the problem but if expect to be spraying a few times annually to ensure new ants don't come back. In general, once every 3 months will keep them under control.
The fact that carpenter ants are attracted to light is both their instinct and an important signal for you: Mating and continuing the species: They can be small or large, with different roles, taking care of food, eggs or larvae, but all members of a carpenter ant colony are female and sterile.
Try pouring a line of cream of tartar, red chili powder, paprika, or dried peppermint at the place where you think ants might be entering the house; they won't cross it. You can also try washing countertops, cabinets, and floors with equal parts vinegar and water.
You'll need boric acid from your local garden store and powdered sugar. Create a mixture of 1/3 sugar to 2/3 boric acid and place it in jar lids or bottle caps in areas where you have seen the ants. While deadly for carpenter ants, boric acid is one of the least toxic insect baits you can use in your home.
Continual Carpenter Ant Protection
Outdoor sprays such as Phantom or Termidor are very effective at killing carpenter ants. Outdoor Liquid Ant Feeders such as the KM Ant Pro Ant Bait Station also provide excellent long term protection and only have to be refilled with new bait every 90 days.