Carpenter ants can do severe damage to your home’s wooden structures if you do not take action. Rather than providing the ants with food, this damage is intended to be used as nest-building equipment. Here are some tips to eradicate them from your home if you spot them in your house. Find out more by contacting your local pest control services on how to eliminate carpenter ants.
Tips To Eliminate Carpenter Ants From Your Home
Let us admit it. Removing carpenter ants can be tricky. Irrespective of various solutions, you can still find them crawling around the house. However, with a few working methods mentioned below, you can get rid of them.
- Find and Eliminate the Carpenter Ant Nest
It is advisable to locate and remove nests infested with wood ants. This is important because carpenter bee queens have been found to live up to 25 years! The queen has a lot of room to lay eggs and increase the ant population on your property. It is suggested that you check your home for frass, which is fine wood shavings that resemble sawdust, both indoors and outside. Furthermore, it is essential to look for any damaged wood and see whether these ants have established a nest there.
Alternatively, track them along until you find the hidden location of their nest. Apply a residual insecticide within that nest so that the poison can instantly destroy any returning ants.
- Combine powdered sugar and baking soda
To create your own carpenter ant bait, you can also use equal portions of powdered sugar and baking soda. It is possible to entice ants with a sweet lure, which contains the final ingredient of baking soda. The preferred approach is to locate this bait in areas where it has been observed that carpenter ants are living in large numbers.
- Use Hot Water to Carpenter Ants
You can use this method once you spot the carpenter ant nest. After boiling a few liters of water, gently pour the water into the anthill. There, all the ants will die. Until there are no more carpenter ants, this treatment will be repeated multiple times. For a further boost, add a few drops of aromatic oil to this hot water.
- Spritz Carpenter Ants with Soapy Water
Another approach is to make a 1:2 mixture of soap and water and put it in a spray bottle. If you spot ants, spray the mixture over them. Since this strategy only kills the ants who get into touch with the soap/water mixture, pest control experts warn that it can take longer for you to get rid of the whole colony.
What to do if these methods do not work?
The methods we have mentioned above are DIY approaches. However, it can be possible that they do not work for everyone. This also depends on various factors, such as how major the infestation is. Usually, if the infestation is higher, you would need more than a normal DIY approach.
If you are unable to get rid of them with the normal methods, you should approach a pest control company. Since they have experience and are professional, you can easily help detect the root cause of the carpenter ants coming to your house. After analyzing, they will help with a personalized strategy that will work on removing them permanently.
Although professional pest control can be more expensive than the traditional approach, the results with professional services are guaranteed. On the other hand, DIY methods do not guarantee results and often offer a temporary solution. Therefore, it is highly advisable to get in touch with a pest control company and get rid of the pests permanently!
