Ants

Call us when you have an ant problem in your home or office.

Ants

Ants are amazingly proficient and savvy animals. Despite the fact that innocuous, they can be an aggravation when they get into your home or business premises. Their mind boggling and agreeable social orders permit them to endure and flourish in conditions that would be usually difficult to us. Here are some fascinating realities that you might need to think about this little yet astounding vermin.

Negative Impact of Ant Infestations

3 Signs That You Have Carpenter Ants In Your Home

Are you worried that you might have carpenter ants in your home?

One of our specialties at Burton Pest Control is carpenter ant eradication. Carpenter ants are very unwanted guests in your house, they cause the most expensive pest problems for you and can destroy the structural integrity of your home.

To be able to get rid of Carpenter ants, the theory is you need to isolate the colony and strand them on an island so they can’t cross a chemical path to get food to the colony. We strategically place a deadly barrier down so they can no longer get in or out of the structure. This is the initial service where everything gets treated, the outside of the house and inside the house. We treat along baseboards, crawlspaces focusing on plumbing areas and in some cases attics too.

Carpenter ants are not like termites that eat wood, carpenter ants make the wood in your house their home. They build colonies of up to 10,000 ants in wood piles, telephone poles, dead trees and unfortunately under houses, and in some walls.

A large colony soon produces smaller satellite communities. Carpenter ants create a network of paths between these colonies and even paths to their multiple food sources. They are most active at night. They look for and create their colonies in soft wet wood, near pipes, and electrical conduit.

The male carpenter ant has wings and can fly. The queen carpenter ant has wings as well and she can produce eggs very quickly and can turn a small colony to a very big one quickly.

The carpenter ants send out scout ants to find and return with food then they bring other ants to the food sources. Carpenter ant foods they look for are plant juices, fungus, molds, food scraps, and even other insects.

I recently watched five carpenter ants fighting it out with a wasp, they lost a few soldiers but eventually killed and carried that wasp off and to their colony.

Ants Don't stand a chance!

Let’s go through the top three warning signs that you might have carpenter ant issues.

Carpenter ants can do much damage, and as summer approaches and the heat starts to rise, it can be a prime time for carpenter ant issues in your home. We’re going to cover some different warning signs of the top three warnings that you might have carpenter ants in your home.

Early Signs of Carpenter Ants

Contrary to popular belief, carpenter ants do not eat wood, but they do burrow through it to build their nests and shelter for themselves. The first warning sign that you have carpenter ants are areas of wood damage and what looks like sawdust piles around your home. These ants don’t eat wood as termites do, but they do tunnel through it.

Many structural areas can be target points for carpenter ants, areas like your deck, the interior walls of your home, trusses in your attic, and floor joists in your basement or crawlspace and wood furniture. Carpenter ants damage to wood can weaken it’s stable nature and strength so that structural components become potentially dangerous. Especially if they’re targeting things like staircases or decks that get a lot of foot traffic. The most significant warning sign is going to be weak or flakey wood that will crumble easily in your hands. You’re going to find little sawdust piles where the ant’s paths have made entry points to those spots.

Close up of Black Carpenter Ant or Camponotus pennsylvanicus (winged male) on white background

The first tip to help keep carpenter ants away and reduce this activity is going to be eliminating their food, water, and shelter sources. Thankfully you’re not going to have to tear down your house or take out your deck.

With proper treatment, the goal is to get rid of the ant’s paths or trails, and this happens by treating the wood around the home. Have a pest control company treat the wood, so it’s harder for these pests “carpenter ants” to get in.

Seal your deck and outdoor furniture many stains put a coating on the wood surfaces that can help to keep these pests away outside.

You’re going to want to eliminate food sources

In your home these create feeding paths for the carpenter ants, they typically eat things that contain sugary substances, crumbs, unsealed pantry items, pet foods, you know the stuff that’s left out on counters, under stoves and protein sources. Properly sealing food containers will help a lot.

Very important way to keep carpenter ants from thriving in your home.

Eliminating water sources is helpful too. Fix those leaky faucets, garbage disposals or again don’t leaving standing water out all the time as we typically do for our pets. Cleanliness is next to godliness. All these tips can help reduce carpenter ant issues as well as other pest issues.

The next warning sign of carpenter ants in and around your home is that lot of dead tree branches on the ground and fallen trees. You might see trees that are sagging or leaning in weird directions. Leaning trees happen because the carpenter ants weaken the trees when they burrow out space to create their colonies. If you see these signs, you’re going to want to get a pest control treatment before they seek out space for their nests inside your house.

Finding them around outside your home is a warning they may be in your home soon or already are. Winged ants are a significant sign of severe carpenter ant problems. If you are seeing them around, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you have an infestation inside your home. The colony sends out scouts over great distances to search for food and water sources and new places to build an adjacent territory.

If you are seeing the ants kill them right away, it is essential to reach out to a pest control service. They should be able to find entry points and trails and cut them off, so your food and water sources are not worth the risk.

So if you see any of these warning signs: weak, brittle wood around your home, small sawdust piles around entry points, the deadfall of trees and branches, and seeing giant black ants, and flying black ants, consider getting this taken care of immediately.