Identifying And Eliminating Carpenter Ants From Your Home
When you find damaged wood in or around your home, it is easy to assume termites are the cause. In reality, carpenter ants may be the insect damaging your home, so you need to know how to identify them. With this information, you can make sure you are using the right products and methods of eliminating your wood destroying insect.
Identifying Features
One thing you should look out for when dealing with wood-destroying insects is the bugs themselves. When you only find damaged wood, your first thought is that termites are destroying your home. However, the ants around your property may be the actual problem.
Carpenter ants look like typical ants, but their size and coloring is what gives them away. Most nuisance ants, which do not damage wood, are brown and under 1/4 of an inch long. Carpenter ants, on the other hand, are generally darker in color and they can be 1/4 to 5/8 of an inch in length.
If you find a few of these ants, then you need to look around your home for more of them. These ants can be found around your wood flooring, siding, and the beams inside the walls. Knowing some locations you can look will help you get a better idea of how big your problem actually is.
Eliminate the Adults
After you identify the carpenter ants, you need to deal with the adults. One method is to use a pesticide that will kill the adults on contact. You need the chemical to go in and around your home, so that ants will encounter it.
It is also a good idea to use a residual pesticide, which is generally a powder or small granules. The ants pick up these chemicals with their bodies and bring them back to the nest. The more contact the ants have with the chemicals, the higher likelihood you kill a large number of them.
Destroy the Nest
A more effective manner for getting rid of these ants is to locate the nest and destroy it. This can be difficult, since carpenter ants can live anywhere outdoors such as inside of dead trees. If you find these ants going through your home during the spring, then the problem is more serious, because this could potentially mean the nest in inside your home.
To locate the nest, it is best to have a pest control technician help you. They know how to track the movements of many insect species and then they can destroy the nest for you. Their help can be especially crucial if the nest is in your home, since leaving the nest alone would give the ants plenty of time to damage your home further. However, with the assistance of a pest control company, you can deal with your problem in a timely fashion. Visit a site like http://cavanaughspest.com for more information about pest control.
