Carpenter Ants

If you stumble upon a midnight procession of large black ants in your bathroom this winter or wake one cold morning to find sawdust sprinkled around your furniture, you are probably living with carpenter ants. Carpenter ants are aptly named because they build their homes in wood. Carpenter ants do not eat wood but carve out smooth galleries in wood to rear their young.

They prefer to infest wood that has been damaged by moisture in some way, especially wood with a moisture content greater than 15 percent. If you see them in your home it may indicate that you have a moisture problem or leak. check kitchens, bathrooms, gutters, and window/door frames for potential leaks or a build up of moisture.

Carpenter ants live naturally in the forest and infest stumps and damaged or dying trees. They are good at follow-the-leader and can often be seen marching along a trail to locate food or other resources. They have been known to follow wires, utility conduits, vines, and tree branches right into your home.

Although they prefer to find areas in your home that match the damaged, moist wood description, they sometimes will also infest healthy wood. They may even establish a secondary nest site within your home. As they carve their galleries, they leave telltale sawdust shavings. All this carving can compromise the integrity of structural timbers within your home.

If you think you have carpenter ants in your home, call us immediately! We can treat the problem and recommend ways to exclude this pest, such as trimming back trees, branches and vines around your home's perimeter, and sealing up openings around the conduit wire and cable entry points. The most important and often most difficult part of carpenter ant control is locating the nest sites. Once the nest has been found, control is straightforward. Sometimes more than one colony is present in the structure or on its grounds, so an initial thorough inspection is very important.

To preven carpenter ant re-infestations after control is achieved, be sure to trim all trees and bushes back from the home. Repair moisture problems such as leaking roofs, chimneys or plumbing, as well as poorly ventilated attics, crawl spaces and blocked gutters. Replace rotted or water-damaged wood and eliminate wood to soil contacts. Remove dead stumps within 50 feet of the house, if practical, and repair trees with damage at broken limbs, and holes in the trunk. Seal cracks and crevices in the home's foundation, especially at utility chase entry points. Be sure to store firewood off the ground away from the house, bring in only enough firewood to be used up quickly, and be sure to examine the firewood first for pests. Consider non-organic mulches near the house in heavily-infested ant areas. High moisture conditions must be eliminated to help control carpenter ants and to prevent future attacks.