One of the most pesky pests in the US are the common carpenter ant.
These industrious creatures are a marvel to behold, with their engineering, community infrastructure, self sacrifices, and proliferation. They are called carpenter ants because they dwell in damp wood and excavate the wood so that they can colonize it. Their efficiency is rarely matched in the animal kingdom, and are respected by scientists even though they can cause extensive damage to a home.
The basic way to prevent them from infesting your home or structure is to locate them by the clues. They’re the largest of ants and are generally black or reddish brown in color. They have fearsome large mandibles for rending their prey or excavating wood. They are ferocious creatures often waging war on other insects in campaigns that rival that of human warfare. They are fearless and self sacrificing. Durable and adventurous. Once they get embedded into the wood and infrastructure of the home, they can be difficult to eradicate and can cause considerable damage leaving the home vulnerable to many structural dangers like exposed wires, support compromising, and more.
Once you’ve located the colony, look to see how close it is to your home. If it’s in your yard at a good distance, you’re not going to have a major problem. You can remove the wood and use a safe insecticide either shelf bought or from a professional service. It takes time, a long time for them to build a sizable colony so if you miss a few ants, you won’t have to worry about them establishing a new threat of a colony for a long while, especially if you’ve gotten rid of the queen. If they’ve infested your home, that’s a bigger problem. They might infest at the wood at the lower more accessible areas of the home making it easier for a professional ants control service to get at them, or they might have discovered more inviting deeper access into the infrastructure which means pulling up floors or taking down walls to get at them. If this is the case, expect to pay a good sum to get rid of the beauties.
Prevention calls for not leaving edible products out of them like sweets and meats. Once they find you’re being sloppy by not cleaning off counters, leaving things around the house, they will begin their assault and make sure to come back for more.
So try to prevent the carpenter ants from taking hold and don’t leave wood lying around the yard, especially near the house. Barns and garages and workshops should be damp free and wood packaged up when not in use. Taking these precautions will protect your property and be less of a headache in the short and long term.
This is pest control and ants control the smart and responsible way.
Image credit: OXANA BERNATSKAYA