Carpenter ants are incredibly challenging to get rid of, even for experienced professional pest control personnel. The enormity of the challenge increases when environmental factors allow them to thrive, such as during the rainy seasons, which create damp conditions perfect for thriving colonies.
It can take a professional pest controller multiple treatments over months to completely eliminate the infestations.
Professional exterminators rely on a wide variety of extermination products and methods. The exact techniques and treatment options an exterminator uses depend on the specifics of the infestation, such as its extent and nature. We’ll take you through what it takes for a professional exterminator to get rid of these critters to give you a better understanding of what to expect.
Signs Of Carpenter Ants In House
Here are some of the signs indicating the presence of a carpenter ant infestation:
1: Scratching and/or rustling sounds in your home’s woodwork and walls – Carpenter ants create nests inside wood. Consequently, they live inside the woodwork in your house when they infest your home. You typically hear scratching and rusting noises while they burrow to create their nests.
2: Ant paths and/or trails – They will leave ant paths or trails to and from their foraging grounds around your home back to their nests.
3: Finding piles of sawdust or wood shavings – Since they create their nests inside woodwork, they create sawdust and wood shavings as they burrow through the wood. You’ll typically notice wood shavings and sawdust around baseboards and window sills.
4: Ant Droppings – Carpenter droppings are unmistakable as they are a mix of fecal matter and wood particles.
5: Clipped wings from swarmer ants – Flying carpenter ants shed their wings. These wings are disposed of near the nests. As such, you find the clipped wings around windows sill and baseboards.
6: Spotting black ants in your home – Spotting large black ants in or around your home might also indicate that your home might be infested with carpenter ants.
What Damage Can Carpenter Ants Cause Your Home?
As you can imagine, a small carpenter ant colony will not cause as much damage as a large one. Large colonies are known to cause structural damage. However, knowing how many ants are in a colony is nearly impossible. The best way to know the extent of infestation is to locate the colony nest or nests in your house.
It’s important to note that many homeowners tend to disproportionately credit carpenter ants with damaging their homes, while a large proportion of the damage is caused by water. Carpenter ants are drawn to moist wood caused by leaking pipes or poorly sealed sidings. Even without carpenter ant infestations, water damage can cause structural damage. However, the ants exacerbate the damage.
Professional Carpenter Ant Removal Methods
There are plenty of carpenter ant extermination methods that professionals rely on to eliminate infestations. Some of the most common methods that Toronto exterminators use to eliminate carpenter ants include:
Dust Treatment: The dust material treatment method is favored when dealing with an indoor infestation. Professional-grade carpenter at dust works to expose and eliminate ant colonies lurking indoors. While numerous brands offer over-the-counter ant dust pesticides, such pesticides do not contain some potent active ingredients that professional-grade pesticide dust contains.
Water-based Insecticide: Water-based insecticides are often used as an alternative to ant dust pesticides. Water-based insecticides are particularly helpful when the exterminator wants the pesticide to percolate into crevices, cracks, and other areas difficult for the insecticide to reach. It is also effective in reducing the size of a colony.
Residual Insecticides: Residual insecticide is a type of insecticide that remains potent months after its application. It is favored when long-term pest control is needed. It’s used directly on nests to eliminate the ants. Additionally, it effectively creates a barrier around your home, preventing ants from accessing and nesting in your home.
Ant Bait: Ant baits are slow-acting solutions loved by exterminators for their long-term effectiveness. For this method, the exterminator identifies the colony’s primary food source and poisons it with a pesticide. The worker ants forage and return the poisoned food to their nests, which eventually kills the colony.
Mist Treatments: Exterminators typically use mist treatments on infested wood surfaces, including doors, beams, and wall voids. It’s an ultra-light mist pressure applied on the intended surfaces. As the pesticide seeps into the wood, it destroys the nests harbored in the wood.
Perimeter Treatment: Perimeter treatment is used in combination with indoor extermination treatment. The treatment is applied around the house’s perimeter to eliminate carpenter ants and prevent them from gaining access to its woodwork.
Hire a Professional Ant Exterminator
Canada has strict regulations on pesticides. Homeowners can’t purchase professional-grade chemicals that are most effective in carpenter ant extermination. Over-the-counter pesticides are typically manufactured without the potent active ingredients most effective in getting rid of these pests. To guarantee their extermination, you should contact an experienced professional exterminator to perform indoor and outdoor carpenter ant treatments.
The issue of satellite colonies also makes it difficult, if not impossible, for DIY treatments to work. A typical homeowner will not have the experience and tools to identify carpenter ant nests in and around their home. So, their extermination efforts will not comprehensively eliminate all carpenter ant colonies.
There is a very real risk that disturbing an ant’s nest (when you try to exterminate but are unsuccessful) will only disperse the queens and worker ants to numerous smaller and dispersed colonies that are harder to eliminate. Your efforts might turn one or two colonies into multiple thriving colonies with growing populations.
An experienced exterminator will guarantee success in permanently eliminating carpenter ants. After all, they identify all the colonies before they begin the extermination process. Importantly, they apply the most effective control method possible to ensure success. Finally, they take preventative measures to negate the risk of carpenter ants returning to your home.
