Carpenter ants, with their vast wings and large bodies, are never a pretty sight, especially when they’re inside your home. I’ve spent more than a decade in the pest control business, and now I’m happy to share my extensive knowledge on how to get rid of carpenter ants with you.
The most effective way to get rid of carpenters ants includes a combination of cutting back trees and bushes around your home and using a slow-to-kill insecticide or bait. You’ll also need to identify where the ants are entering your home. Once you find their front door to your home, you can start getting rid of your unwanted house guests.
Over time, carpenter ants can cause a whole lot of damage to your home if left untreated. Your home is a significant investment, and that’s why it’s essential to take an infestation seriously.
You might also be interested in reading this related article “How To Get Rid Of Kitchen Ants“.
Getting Rid Of Carpenter Ants
So, you think you have carpenter ants. You’re not alone. Turns out carpenter ants are one of the top calls received by pest control companies around the country.
When I owned and operated my own pest control business, we were constantly fielding calls from worried homeowners curious about excess ant activity around their homes.
Before I get into the details of getting rid of carpenter ants, I should note this is not a quick process. The most effective way to kill an entire colony of ants is slow and steady. Think of it like a mini-marathon, not a sprint.
That’s because queen ants are smart and if they sense something array with her workers, she’ll move quickly to produce sub-queens and they’ll, in turn, leave the nest and set up a new colony.
Before I even get into effective chemincals to get rid of carpenter ants, there are a few things you can do right now to start the extermination process. Walk outside and take a look around your home.
Do you see any limbs or branches touching your home? If so, time to start cutting back the shrubs and trees. Carpenter ants use these limbs and trees like a bridge- a free ride straight to your hose. They’re not even paying the toll!
Another point of access is often through the foundation of your home. Walk around and see if you can spot an ant trail. Observe several ants and see where they’re heading. This can be tedious, but extremely helpful. Again, if you eliminate the source, you eliminate the ant infestation.
As a pest control professional, my go-to product of choice is Termidor. It’s an insecticide that is odorless, tasteless, colorless, so ants don’t even know it’s there. You can purchase the foam version of the product on Amazon. Before you use any insecticide or other chemical, it’s important to always read the manufacturer’s label.
Here’s a list of my top four go-to products for carpenter ants:
| Treatment | Use | Pros | Cons |
| Termidor | Spray one foot up and one foot out around the foundation of your home. | Ants walk on chemical, and take back to colony. Quick acting, takes about a week or so to destroy colony. | Can only be used outside. |
| Advion Ant Bait | Set out bait traps where ants are entering home. Ants eat the bait and bring it back to colony. | No sprays, easy to set up, odorless. Can be used inside and outside your home. Affordable at around $40 for a 30 count bag. | none |
| Optigard Ant Gel Bait | Apply bait directly into cracks and crevices around your home. Can also used around windows and door frames. | Easy to apply and effective. Bait is injected directly into the path of ants. | Can be messy. Don’t apply near a water source or it could dilute the active ingredients. |
| Talstar | Spray around home to create a barrier. Can be used inside and outside your home. | Long lasting. Is effective in exterminating more than just carpenter ants, such as mosquitoes, stinkbugs, and bedbugs. | Talstar is only useful inside when outside Termidor is used |
Tell-Tale Signs You Have Carpenter Ants
Carpenter ants aren’t exactly known for leaving their colonies in tip-top shape.
Think of what your room looked like as a teenager. Was it messy? Perhaps there was a trail of laundry leading outside your room and into the hall. Now you know how carpenter ants live. Without the laundry, of course. Then we might have bigger problems.
By nature, these pesky ants burrow through the wood. However, they don’t eat wood for lunch. In fact, they munch through it, spit it out, and keeping moving deeper into the structure. This results in a small pile of saw-dust looking material. This is just one of many signs that you have a carpenter ant infestation.
Signs you have a carpenter ants include:
- Wood shavings or dust on walls
- Faint noises inside walls or wood structure- think a rustling noise.
- Large ants flying around inside your home
- Ants shed their wings. If you find these sheddings in a window sill or baseboard, you have carpenter ants.
- During the winter months, if you spot sizeable flying carpenter ants inside your home, chances are you have an infestation. Carpenter ants with wings are male and female in search of reproducing.
Damage Caused By Carpenter Ants
So, now that you know how to get rid of carpenter ants, you may be wondering if it’s all worth this effort. Yes. A resounding, YES! I don’t mean to yell, but you most certainly want to take these pests seriously.
If left untreated, carpenter ants can cause thousands of dollars in structural damage to your most significant investment- your home.
Quick story. One time when responding to a call for a possible carpenter ant infestation, I discovered an entire colony living in the staircase of a home.
Over time, the ants chewed their way through the wood, causing it to lose its strength. The wood was very weak and porous- think of walking on a soft mattress.
If the homeowners hadn’t taken the time to investigate the infestation, its possible someone could have been hurt, falling through the staircase.
Luckily, no one was hurt, and we applied a product to effectively kill the carpenter ants. The homeowner was then able to make necessary repairs to the staircase and rest of the home.
While the homeowner wasn’t certainly expecting to spend more money replacing an staircase, it’s better than the alternative.
The bottom line is carpenter ants are capable of causing structural damage to your home if they’re left to their ways. Don’t let them make your home sweet home, their home too.
In some cases, carpenter ant damage is reportable during a real estate transaction. If not taken care of properly, the infestation could affect the sale or purchase of a dream home.
Can you imagine preparing to sell your house and have the closing date pushed out several months because of ants? It would be a nightmare.
How to Prevent Carpenter Ants
Keeping carpenter ants at bay is perhaps the best way to keep the pests far, far, away. Prevention is easy, simple, and won’t take up a lot of your time.
The best ways to keep carpenter ants away from your home include:
- Carpenter ants need water to survive. Keep standing water away from your home. Please don’t give them a reason to come any closer to your house.
- Trim back limbs and brush around your house. Remember, these serve as bridges.
- Move woodpiles away from your house. This includes stacks of firewood.
- Avoid stacking firewood inside your house. Bring in only what you’ll be using for the day.
- Seal any cracks or crevices around your foundation, windows, and doors with a silicon-based product.
- Don’t leave any food out inside or outside your house. Ants are attracted to sweets such as honey, sugar, and jelly.
When To Call A Professional
More often than not, you can effectively get rid of your carpenter ant problem all on your own. By following the detailed instructions in this article, the odds are in your favor!
However, if you’re uncomfortable applying insecticide yourself or need an expert opinion to determine the extent of damage, you may want to consider a pest control professional.
While you can purchase most insecticide over the counter or online, a professional pest control company may have access to more potent mixtures.
Related Questions
How to get rid of carpenter ants naturally?
The best way to get rid of carpenter ants naturally is to create a mixture of baking soda and sugar.
Ants love sugar and the baking soda is deadly. You can also try essential oils, such as lemongrass or peppermint to deter the ants.
What does a carpenter ant look like?
Carpenter ants are some of the largest ants in the United States. Depending on where you live, the ants range in color from black to red.
They’re about five times the size of regular ants. Depending on the cycle of the ant, they will have wings and can fly.
Quickest way to get rid of carpenter ants?
The quickest way to get rid of carpenter ants is to use a trusted insecticide designed to slowly kill the entire colony. This process could take up to a week, sometimes longer depending on the size of the infestation.
If you want a short-term fix, you can kill carpenter ants as you see them- but this is like putting a band-aid on a broken arm. It’s not effective and in the long-run takes more time and energy.