Like the FBI’s Most Wanted list, carpenter ants, cockroaches, and bed bugs are easily the three most hated and hunted of urban insect species. Each one has its own habits and food sources. Understanding them can help you know how to keep them out of your home.
Carpenter Ants – Considered the most common household insect in North America, carpenter ants live in the walls, floors, and trees of our properties. Black and red in color, carpenter ants can be up to an inch long.
These ants live in rotten wood, tunneling their way very efficiently around. They are sometimes thought of as being like termites, but they don’t eat the wood. In fact, they are great at building perfectly rounded tunnels and rooms, leaving no wood shavings behind at all.
Carpenter ants have to have a consistent source of moisture. In the wild, this will be under a branch of a tree. In a home, this can be a moist area like an attic or a crawlspace.
Because they don’t eat wood, they will look for other foods. They particularly love sweets.
Prevention is not too difficult. Keep vines and shrubs away from your home. Pay attention to what is on or in the firewood you bring into the house. Watch for holes or rotting along the foundation, around skylights, near door frames, or even near telephone wires.
A pest control professional will look for the nest and figure out how large it is. Eliminating the nest requires destroying the whole nest at once.
The Anchor Pest Control team can make sure that you never have an infestation of carpenter ants in the first place. We can also help you to eliminate an infestation quickly and completely if you have one. Call us today for an inspection or preventative maintenance service!