Can Carpenter Ants Actually Damage the Structural Integrity of You Home?

When that ½ inch long creature is a carpenter ant, the answer is yes! So, what can a home owner do? Take these four important steps: 

1. Know your enemy! Knowing what a carpenter ant looks like can help you quickly gauge whether you have a simple nuisance ant in your home or one that can cause damage and an expensive repair. A carpenter ant is ½ to 5/8 inch long making it larger than many other common ants, like pavement ants or little black ants. It has a segmented body that is red, black, or a combination of the two colors.  Although to many of us all ants basically look alike, a pest control professional can easily tell the difference between the varieties of ants found in this area.If you don’t see any ants walking around that doesn’t necessarily mean you don’t have any in your home!
2. As best you can, inspect the wood like window sills, door frames, and baseboards around your house. Carpenter ants quietly tunnel through wood. Look for sawdust (frass) that has fallen through cracks. Although this is an important step, we know that it can be very hard to see the damage that is being done to the interior of a wood structure. Just because you do not see the sawdust, does not mean that you don’t have ants. If the damage is very severe, you may notice that your wood has small holes in it, but this usually happens in more extreme cases. 
3. If you have read our other articles and videos on pest control you have probably heard this before, but it still rings true for carpenter ants: remove moisture! Like many other pests, carpenter ants like moisture. In fact, they need a constant water source to survive. Removing standing water from around your property can help to deter them. Inside your home, installing a dehumidifier in areas that tend to have a lot of moisture can be extremely beneficial.
4. Close the road! Ever try to go somewhere and come to a detour? It’s annoying, and in some cases annoying enough that you will choose a different destination just to avoid the detour. Well, ants can feel the same way! If there are trees and bushes growing right up against your house, it is a perfect road for ants to enter our home. The last step you as a home owner can take is to trim those shrubs back to at least 18 inches from your home which is like putting up a road closed sign. Can ants still enter your home through a different route, yes, but will the detour have them choose a different area to create their nest, probably.

Removing moisture and access points are important tools in your arsenal to keep carpenter ants away. If these measures do not work and you do find carpenter ants in your home, contact us and will be able to determine the extent of the infestation and inform you of the safest ways to get rid of your pest problem.