How do I get rid of carpenter ants in my house?
Starting off the new year in a really rotten way: for the last week and a half I've been seeing more and more carpenter ants in my house, and it's driving me up the wall! Anyone know where they come from, what kind of harm they're capable of, and most importantly how to get rid of them???? You'd have my eternal gratitude
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For a complete guide to this topic, read the wikiHow article The Best Ways to Get Rid of Carpenter Ants in Your Home.
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I am sorry you are having trouble with Carpenter Ants. You have gotten some great information so far. I want to clarify a few things: Your landscape should not touch your home's foundation. Pull that back to limit the pest's access. Check your window sills for moisture damage. Finally, ensure no tree limbs touch the roof or sides of your home. These limbs act like little highways for pests to enter.
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You can spot treat the carpenter ants and they'll be dead, but ants will often come back. They’ll also need regular treatment because of their reproduction cycle.
To actively kill them, another thing you can do is use hot soapy water. However, you're still going to have recurrence because it will just kill them on contact.
Do not use an over-the-counter product that has an ingredient in it that's a repellent, like Raid. It will repel the ants from the one place it was sprayed, but they’ll just pick a different spot to crop up.
Beyond that, you can get treatment help from a professional.
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To actively kill them, another thing you can do is use hot soapy water. However, you're still going to have recurrence because it will just kill them on contact.
Do not use an over-the-counter product that has an ingredient in it that's a repellent, like Raid. It will repel the ants from the one place it was sprayed, but they’ll just pick a different spot to crop up.
Beyond that, you can get treatment help from a professional.
Like regular ants, when carpenter ant colonies get to a certain size, they send out swarmers, or flying ants, to find suitable areas to grow new colonies. While carpenter ants are not as damaging as termites, they come close. It's just that people tend to notice them sooner because of their size.
Carpenter ants are drawn to untreated, unpainted, RAW wooden areas of your home, to damp areas, or if there's dead wood or rotting wood on the property. Take care of firewood stacks, cover or remove old stumps, make sure wood is painted or stained, replace damaged siding, etc.
Getting rid of carpenter ants is going to require professional intervention once you've got them because of their ability to create not only structural damage, but to infest the structural areas of your home you don't necessarily have access to.
If the issue is low-level enough, you may be able to take care of the issue with store-bought carpenter ant bait, but this is not recommended if you're a homeowner - protect your investment!
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Carpenter ants are drawn to untreated, unpainted, RAW wooden areas of your home, to damp areas, or if there's dead wood or rotting wood on the property. Take care of firewood stacks, cover or remove old stumps, make sure wood is painted or stained, replace damaged siding, etc.
Getting rid of carpenter ants is going to require professional intervention once you've got them because of their ability to create not only structural damage, but to infest the structural areas of your home you don't necessarily have access to.
If the issue is low-level enough, you may be able to take care of the issue with store-bought carpenter ant bait, but this is not recommended if you're a homeowner - protect your investment!
If you can find the nest, that's a great way to stop the problem at its source. Vacuum up the nest, pour boiling water into it (if it's outdoors), or spray the nest with insecticide. Also try to find any cracks around your house and seal them up so that it's harder for the ants to get inside. Carpenter ants aren't harmful to humans and pets because they generally don't bite, but they can wreak havoc on your home when they excavate wood to make their nests.
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From my understanding, carpenter ants only appear if there's wet or rotting wood somewhere in your house, because they like to build their nests in the wood, which could seriously damage your house.
You can pretty easily kill carpenter ants by mixing a tablespoon of Borox, a half-cup of sugar, and a cup or so of water in a bowl and soaking cottong balls in the mixture. Leave the cup with the cotton balls out and it'll attract the ants like...well, sugar! They'll even take the sugar back to their nests and poison the other ants with it. 10/10 recommend (but maybe not if you have small kids or pets running around).
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You can pretty easily kill carpenter ants by mixing a tablespoon of Borox, a half-cup of sugar, and a cup or so of water in a bowl and soaking cottong balls in the mixture. Leave the cup with the cotton balls out and it'll attract the ants like...well, sugar! They'll even take the sugar back to their nests and poison the other ants with it. 10/10 recommend (but maybe not if you have small kids or pets running around).
Carpenter ants and black ants are commonly mistaken for each other! It's important to tell the difference because carpenter ants can cause damage to your home structure, while black ants just want your food. Carpenter ants are larger and like to hang out in moist, woody areas.
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Borax sprinkled around the outside window seals and borders of house. I’d wet it too.
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