Carpenter ant infestations are rarely small. By the time you notice them they have likely created multiple satellite colonies and have infested large portions of the house. They hide well and stay out of view until they are large enough to be overwhelming. They are a terrifying infestation, and they bite. Furthermore, they cause allergic reactions in some people and make asthma worse. So if you have them in your home you need to act fast and get rid of them. If the infestation is truly large then you will want to think about the damage they may have caused to your home, its structural integrity and the safety of living in it. likelihood is you will have to perform a lot of repairs, so it’s good to take precautions and inspect the property regularly for carpenter ant infestations.
Carpenter ants drill holes in drywall and wood and make nests in these places as well as in your insulation, assuming it isn’t cellulose insulation that is coated in boric acid to kill insects like carpenter ants. You can find signs of them in these oblong holes. Look for little piles of dust beneath them. These piles are wood shavings so fine they look like dust and feces from the ants as well as ant parts like legs and chunks of the thorax. Another example of carpenter ants on your property is the presence of dead winged ants and separated ant wings, this means ants have bred on your property and are making more colonies. If you find these then you have an infestation and need to act quickly to get rid of them. You can try doing it yourself. Get some boric acid and a spray bottle, dilute with water and spray it everywhere in your home, on walls on furniture and baseboards. You can also use silica in water to kill them. These things dry and crystallize into jagged forms that tear apart the ant’s carapace and kills it. You can also take a syringe filled with cedar oil and insert it directly into the holes. The scent will travel quite far and suffocate many of the ants with its powerful fumes.
The best way to treat these ants is to get rid of the things they need and to replace them with things that will kill them. You will need to clear your property of any old wood. If you have an old deck you will need to demolish it. If you have woodpiles or old stumps they need to be removed. There should be no branches, sticks or any detritus or garbage on your property. This will kill off the main colony that started outside and will make your work on the inside easier.
Once you have rid your property of detritus you will need to treat the issue directly. Luckily, carpenter ants must eat food because termites do not, and they will never leave their tunnel. Carpenter ants live off of actual food, not wood, so you can clear away all the food in your home and store it in hard plastic glass or metal containers that will prevent the ants from gaining access. Once this is done you can then treat the insects with homemade or domestic products. Domestic and gel bait is effective and so is boric acid bait, but you do not need to spend a lot, you can just as easily make boric acid bait yourself with sugar, flower water and boric acid. Make little dough balls and set them around the house where you see the ants. They will take it back to the colony and be killed by it along with the rest of the colony. You can also use diatomaceous earth to spread around the baseboards and to be puffed into cracks and crevices. This material is a fine silica powder that slices open the waxy layer that holds moister in the insect. This will result in numerous dead ants.
