An Entomologist Says This Is a Telltale Sign You Have Carpenter Ants

When carpenter ants are in nature, they’re drawn to fallen trees and stumps—any large piece of wood really. The decay that takes over dead or compromised wood outdoors makes it easier to tunnel into in order to carve out galleries for their nests. But when they get into your house, that’s a problem because, unlike home remedies for gnats, fruit flies, and kitchen ants (the tiny ones), DIY solutions are not up to the challenge of getting rid of carpenter ants.

“Carpenter ants are a difficult pest to deal with,” says Emma Grace Crumbley, a professional entomologist who, as a member of the pest management company Mosquito Squad, helps educate the public about insects. “We classify carpenter ants in our industry as a wood-destroying organism. They’re grouped in with the likes of termites, powderpost beetles, and other pests that damage wood infrastructure.”

In fact, little piles of sawdust spilling out of tiny holes in your home is a telltale sign that you have carpenter ants.

You can also recognize them by their appearance: “The carpenter ant itself is larger than a lot of the other kinds of ants that homeowners might have,” Crumbley says. “So if we think about the size of little black ants or odorous house ants, those guys are really tiny—they’re the kind of ants you think about when they trail into your home after it rains. Carpenter ants, on the other hand, they’re huge and they have these really hairy abdomens. If homeowners are seeing those, that’s their first sign that, okay, I might be dealing with carpenter ants problem.”

If you’re facing an infestation of carpenter ants in your house, here’s what you need to know.

What is the fastest way to get rid of carpenter ants?

In short, call the professionals. While there are DIY solutions for many insect pests, Crumbley says, carpenter ants, like termites, are best dealt with by a professional pest management company. “That’s simply because these kind of organisms can be difficult to locate. To get the most effective control, you want to find their primary nest. The nest where the queen is and where the most of the population is, and then you want to take care of that, which is a lot easier said than done, because carpenter ants are very efficient at making nests in hard-to-find areas. And it’s not very easy for homeowners to take on that challenge by themselves. It can be frustrating and lead to the problem getting more and more irritating.”

Why am I getting carpenter ants?

They’re Food Foraging

“The most common reason that people get carpenter ants,” Crumbley says, “is because there’s either a nest near their home or even sometimes within their home that is allowing those ants proximity to their house. The ants are there not to devour the house itself, or devour the wood itself, but rather they’re foraging for food—maybe food that’s around the house if you have vegetation or trash receptacles that have food in them, or food within the house. Some of our obvious suspects are crumbs in the kitchen or a lot of debris that is around that they’re able to pick up.

You’ve Got Moisture and/or Wood Decay

“To be a little bit more specific, a lot of the carpenter ant problems we see occur in areas with high moisture levels,” Crumbley says. “Carpenter ants are adept at chewing through all types of wood as long as they’re not treated or pressure treated. So, they can chew through sound wood to create their galleries, but it is a lot easier for them to target areas with high moisture. That’s another reason people might be seeing carpenter ants in their home—there’s an area of moisture or high wood decay that these ants are then able to take over to develop their nests and colonies.”

Here’s What to Do to Avoid Them

“Prevention is the best control strategy when it comes to carpenter ants and the best way to do that is to ensure that your home’s foundation and structure is sound,” Crumbley says. “Check for unwanted moisture areas in places like the basement or if your home has a crawl space. Make sure there’s not unnecessary moisture that’s causing decay or deterioration in areas that have plumbing, whether that’s bathrooms, kitchens, or appliance areas that maybe are leaking, like dishwashers or refrigerators.

“Then check if your home has any wooden features or accessories that need repair or are starting to decompose or decay. That could be fence posts, a deck, even the mailbox outside. Make sure that all of those areas are not only looking nice but are either constructed with some kind of treated wood or, at the very least, are not in high moisture areas.”

How do you find a carpenter ant nest?

“In terms of finding the nest, carpenter ants are unique. They don’t actually eat the wood that they chew through. Their bodies just aren’t made to process wood or get any nutrients from that. So anytime they’re digging through walls or chewing through wood, it’s to hollow out cavities for their nest,” Crumbley says. Since they are not eating the wood they chew through, they need a way to clear it so they don’t end up with a ton of wood scraps in their galleries.

“So, carpenter ants will also develop these kick out holes—some people call them windows—but they’re these little pinholes that you might find around your home or above a windowsill or in the walls. (That’s where) carpenter ants kick out all the debris that gathers up in their galleries,” Crumbley says. “That’s a sign of maybe where the nest is located, or at least where part of the population is in your home, if you start seeing little holes with piles of sawdust underneath them. That should tell you, okay, this is one of the areas where carpenter ants are active and pushing out some of that debris.”

But, again, even if you find carpenter ants’ telltale kick out holes, you want to be sure you find the primary nest with the queen, and that can be difficult. If you see these signs of an infestation, time to call in the professionals.

At the beginning of Country Living’s conversation with entomologist Emma Grace Crumbley, she noted that carpenter ants go hand in hand with termites in that they are both wood-destroying organisms best dealt with by a professional pest management company when you have a home infestation. Still, we asked her to address some of the more specific questions about home remedies that people ask often online. Read on for her answers on the effectiveness products like vinegar and dish soap, but to cut to the chase…

Will straight vinegar kill carpenter ants?

“If you were to drop an ant into a bucket of vinegar, I’m sure it would kill the organism. However, just spraying it, which I think is the common method people are using online, that’s not going to do anything to convince the them,” Crumbley says. It may be an effective repellent if you spray it around an entry point or areas where plumbing penetrations are, she adds. “But it’s not going to be an effective tool for actually killing carpenter ants.”

Does Dawn dish soap kill carpenter ants?

“With any kind of dish soap or soap mixture—usually it’s a soap to water ratio to dilute it a little bit—that can help discourage ants of most kinds from coming to areas of your home. Also, what it can do is disrupt ants’ pheromone trails. That can either help or hurt your pest control situation,” Crumbley says. “On one hand, you’re disrupting their pheromone trail, so it’s kind of messing up their biology a little bit and at least the way they communicate. But on the other hand, it might just frustrate these ants. And then now you have ants that are, instead of trailing neatly through your home, are kind of sporadically, frustratedly moving about. So again, it’s not going to be a good solution to kill the carpenter ants necessarily, but it may disrupt some of those biological behaviors they have.”

What is the best homemade carpenter ant killer?

“As a professional in this space (the pest management industry) and as an entomologist, I wish that there was an answer for that. Providing homeowners with that relief would be excellent. But there’s not really a good DIY home solution to kill carpenter ants,” Crumbley says. “It involves more of a problem than maybe some of your other pest control needs. The carpenter ants that a homeowner might see foraging around their house doesn’t really represent the total population that they could be dealing with in an infestation. So about 80% to 85% of a carpenter ant colony is going to reside in the nest, wherever that nest is. And there’s not really a good way to control for that without contacting a professional pest management company. There’s not really a good home product you can use that’s going to reach that effective level of control.”

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