The Danger of Carpenter ant
Carpenter ants are a danger to your home’s survival which, for the general population of North America, is a danger to your survival as a homeowner. Carpenter ants can turn a house into Swiss cheese if given the opportunity and will do so without a thought to you or your family. If the house is infested for long enough you may be forced out by the government as your house will have to be condemned. This will take years of having an infestation but years can pass by faster than many people realize. You see a carpenter ant, you try some home remedies and then, suddenly, a few years later your home is falling apart and you need to move out.
Carpenter ant life cycle
Carpenter ant queens can live for up to twenty-five years. That means they can run a nest for that long while making workers and making more queens. If your house is suitable for them the new queens will just make a new nest in your home instead of flying off to make a nest somewhere else. Increasing the damage to your home exponentially. If something isn’t done about it they will destroy your house resulting in tens of thousands of dollars of repairs or worse.
How to tell if you have carpenter ants
Carpenter ants are not like termites you will see them walking around your home. However, if you do not but you want to find out if they are there you should look for holes in the wood. Check the exterior like your deck. If there are little holes in the deck with piles of dust under it then you may have carpenter ants. This dust is called frass and is wood shavings, feces and urine and dead ant parts in a mulch the ants remove from the tunnels regularly. This is the best way to know you have an infestation without actually seeing the ants.
Carpenter ants and termites
Carpenter ants are just one of a number of insects that build nests in wood. What differed between them and termites is that carpenter ants do not eat the wood. They simply live in it. Termites eat wood and therefore do not need to leave their nest and which makes them very hard to treat.
Domestic Carpenter ant Treatments
Carpenter ants must leave the nest constantly to find food to bring back to the nest. This is your chance to kill them like you would any other pest. Through insecticide dust, domestic pesticides and ant bait. If this treatment does not work then you will need to call a professional exterminator.
Commercial Carpenter ant Treatments
A commercial-grade treatment is the best way to get rid of carpenter ants and the fastest way. A technician can use industrial-grade pesticides and bait to kill the colony and save your home. They will do an exterior spray of the house to kill ants trying to come in and inspect for the source of the infestation which is usually on the exterior like on a deck or old stump. They will then do a baseboard spray on the inside of the house with bait that is commercial grade. If they find the nest they can use an ultra-light volume mist to penetrate the nest behind walls and floorboards kill the ants inside and infect it. This can go so far as to kill the queen herself.