OT: Carpenter Ants

[UConnTrumbull]

Bought a house in December (Monroe CT). Seems these little f’ers like my house (primarily kitchen) for some reason. Been trying baits from Home Depot and cleaning the kitchen with water/vinegar compound. Wondering if it’s just best to call Orkin or whoever. Any thoughts appreciated.

 

[CL82]

Bought a house in December (Monroe CT). Seems these little f’ers like my house (primarily kitchen) for some reason. Been trying baits from Home Depot and cleaning the kitchen with water/vinegar compound. Wondering if it’s just best to call Orkin or whoever. Any thoughts appreciated.

I'd definitely bring in an exterminator. They'll do a better inspection than you will and should retreat as much as needed without an additional charge. Don't screw around with it. Get rid of them. They do a lot of damage and do it quickly.

Are you sure they are Carpenter ants? Get a magnifying glass and compare to the picture below to be sure.

 

[Mister P]

You’ve only just begun.....

 

[JohnFSilver]

Bought a house in December (Monroe CT). Seems these little f’ers like my house (primarily kitchen) for some reason. Been trying baits from Home Depot and cleaning the kitchen with water/vinegar compound. Wondering if it’s just best to call Orkin or whoever. Any thoughts appreciated.

Bait doesn’t work with carpenter ants. You have to find the source and kill them there.

Exterminator is best way. I hate those ants.

 

[Horatio]

Had the same issue this year. I would see them in the kitchen every morning.
1. I bought “Home Defense” from Home Depot and sprayed the outside perimeter/ foundation of the house and outside window frames.
2. I bought the liquid ant traps and place them all over the kitchen but I also squeezed the liquid out so the ants could get to it easier.

About 6- 8 days and no more ants. You’ll then see piles of dead ants in places. My neighbor said he had them without knowing and they did major property damage. Spray around every year the first week of March.
The bait worked for me

 

[uchusky32]

Since they are Carpenter ants you might have to take it up with their union.

 

[tykurez]

Also live in Monroe. Had an insane infestation the other day in our living room after we placed a trap for smaller sugar ants. Traps don’t work for them.

Here’s what worked (they haven’t been back since): 1 part Borax, 3 parts sugar mixed in water. Soak cotton balls with the mixture and place it wherever their trail is (preferably where they’re entering in). Let the ants attack that for a day. Those that make it back to the nest will bring it with them. It’s cuts them up from the inside out.

Good luck. If that doesn’t work you can sprinkle diatomaceous earth all over and it will dry them up. I got that stuff too but didn’t end up having to use it after the borax.

 

[Hoophound]

If you bring in pest control, call around. We get carpenter ants in our Vermont house regularly. I pay $250/year for unlimited calls.

 

[JohnFSilver]

Do you know where the nest is? They don’t carry food (poison) back to their nest like sugar ants. So, you got to kill them all with a bomb. This is worth the price of exterminator. Sugar ants you can get rid of. Carpenter is really hard.

 

[tdrink]

Carpenter ants got their name because in the colonial era houses were made with green lumber (fresh cut, very high moisture content. The ants would move into these pieces of wet wood before the carpenters were even done constructing.

Medium sized carpenter ants (bigger than sugar ants but not as big as worker carpenter ants) in ones or twos are not generally an issue. Those are the rangers (also called pharaohs). Their job is to look for nesting opportunities.

To have a problem in your house you need to have a situation where water is getting on wood. A leak, splashing against a sill, etc. The ants need water for a colony. Not a huge amount, but if the supply is too intermittent the colony will die. If they have the conditions right, workers will move in and start to tunnel through the wood. They are capable of incredible amounts of damage. Unlike termites, they do not eat the wood, so one of the first indications can be finding little balls of masticated wood.

The best way of checking for an infestation is to go around your house with a stethoscope and listen to the walls and ceilings. If there is a colony you will hear them chewing.

I have had good luck with the baits designed for exterior placement. I have also physically removed whole nests from people’s houses, fixed the leak and they never had a problem again. FWIW I have been bitten by the ants many times while doing that.

 

[Notafan]

Carpenter ants got their name because in the colonial era houses were made with green lumber (fresh cut, very high moisture content. The ants would move into these pieces of wet wood before the carpenters were even done constructing.

Medium sized carpenter ants (bigger than sugar ants but not as big as worker carpenter ants) in ones or twos are not generally an issue. Those are the rangers (also called pharaohs). Their job is to look for nesting opportunities.

To have a problem in your house you need to have a situation where water is getting on wood. A leak, splashing against a sill, etc. The ants need water for a colony. Not a huge amount, but if the supply is too intermittent the colony will die. If they have the conditions right, workers will move in and start to tunnel through the wood. They are capable of incredible amounts of damage. Unlike termites, they do not eat the wood, so one of the first indications can be finding little balls of masticated wood.

The best way of checking for an infestation is to go around your house with a stethoscope and listen to the walls and ceilings. If there is a colony you will hear them chewing.

I have had good luck with the baits designed for exterior placement. I have also physically removed whole nests from people’s houses, fixed the leak and they never had a problem again. FWIW I have been bitten by the ants many times while doing that.

Just piggybacking on this. I bought a home a few years ago and it had a 3 season room. We thought it was great, until we came home one day to hundreds of carpenter ants plus flying ones. I finally had enough one day and ripped open the walls. Found a 2x4 that I could put my finger through. The ants had eaten through a whole corner of the room. When I took down the walls, sawdust was everywhere.

They thrive in damp wood, and we later found that one of the windows wasn't sealed properly, making the wood in that corner damp. Don't sleep on these ants because they can cause huge structural problems.

 

[Purple Stein]

I'd definitely bring in an exterminator.

This is the right answer. Bring in a professional and get it done right. Lay out the $$ to follow up with treatment for a second year to make sure you're in the clear,

I tried baiting and spraying myself and got nowhere. Ants were in the kitchen, like you. A couple of days after the exterminator came in, there were hundreds of dead ants falling from the ceiling in the basement. It was crazy.

Where you see 'em isn't where they live. Get a pro to take care of the problem.

 

[Danzz]

Bought a house in December (Monroe CT). Seems these little f’ers like my house (primarily kitchen) for some reason. Been trying baits from Home Depot and cleaning the kitchen with water/vinegar compound. Wondering if it’s just best to call Orkin or whoever. Any thoughts appreciated.

Definitely bring in an exterminator. He will probably spray around the foundation to get at the source.
I had a problem with crickets and ants last year and the exterminator fot rid of them. Turned out I had a small tree that was infested with ants. Took down the tree and when the exterminator was done no more problems. I hate the little bastards.

 

[8893]

Two questions to piggyback on this:

In the past two days we've seen four large black ants walking across the ceiling in the room next to our kitchen. Is this a cause for concern, or are we talking lots of visible large ants?

Do the same exterminators take care of carpenter bees? I have seen a couple of those in the shed attached to our garage this week.

 

[tdrink]

This is the right answer. Bring in a professional and get it done right. Lay out the $$ to follow up with treatment for a second year to make sure you're in the clear,

I tried baiting and spraying myself and got nowhere. Ants were in the kitchen, like you. A couple of days after the exterminator came in, there were hundreds of dead ants falling from the ceiling in the basement. It was crazy.

Where you see 'em isn't where they live. Get a pro to take care of the problem.

You likely have a leak or other moisture creating situation. Potentially already structural damage as well.

Definitely bring in an exterminator. He will probably spray around the foundation to get at the source.
I had a problem with crickets and ants last year and the exterminator fot rid of them. Turned out I had a small tree that was infested with ants. Took down the tree and when the exterminator was done no more problems. I hate the little bastards.

You lprobably could have eliminated the problem by removing the tree first.

Two questions to piggyback on this:

In the past two days we've seen four large black ants walking across the ceiling in the room next to our kitchen. Is this a cause for concern, or are we talking lots of visible large ants?

Do the same exterminators take care of carpenter bees? I have seen a couple of those in the shed attached to our garage this week.

Individual ants are likely rangers. IMO exterminators are not effective for carpenter bees. There are bee traps available which are more effective, better for the environment and don’t risk discoloration of your house since an exterminator can only spray onto the surface of anyplace they might bore through the surface. Usually people don’t even know they have bees until the woodpeckers start excavating your siding to get at them.

I am not saying exterminators have no place in this conversation. If a carpenter ant infestation was a broken bone, exterminators are like a bottle of painkillers.It will make it feel better, but you need to have the bone set. That means figuring out what the water source is.

 

[CL82]

Two questions to piggyback on this:

In the past two days we've seen four large black ants walking across the ceiling in the room next to our kitchen. Is this a cause for concern, or are we talking lots of visible large ants?

Do the same exterminators take care of carpenter bees? I have seen a couple of those in the shed attached to our garage this week.

Both ants and bees? Sounds like a the start of northern chupacabra infestation. The often take the form of wood burrowing insects in the early stages. That's not good. That's not good at all.

 

[8893]

Individual ants are likely rangers. IMO exterminators are not effective for carpenter bees. There are bee traps available which are more effective, better for the environment and don’t risk discoloration of your house since an exterminator can only spray onto the surface of anyplace they might bore through the surface. Usually people don’t even know they have bees until the woodpeckers start excavating your siding to get at them.

Thanks. So does that mean I already have a carpenter ant problem, or just a potential one? We had our house power washed on Friday and I removed all the storms and screens so that the outer-facing window sashes would get cleaned, but it's an older house--built in 1966--so it has older sills and there was a little water sitting in some of them while I am cleaning the storms and screens before putting them back in. Is it possible that they came in that quickly, i.e., within a day of having that situation? I am putting them back in slowly but surely and just want to have a handle on how urgent it may be because it's a bit of a PITA and not fast, especially when I am trying to get it done in between soccer games, work and some other stuff.

As for the bees, we seem to get them this time every year and then they are gone. Not sure if they are carpenter bees, but they are huge.

ETA: Just looked up images of carpenter bees. That's not what these are. These are just big MF bumblebees of some sort.

 

[tdrink]

Thanks. So does that mean I already have a carpenter ant problem, or just a potential one? We had our house power washed on Friday and I removed all the storms and screens so that the outer-facing window sashes would get cleaned, but it's an older house--built in 1966--so it has older sills and there was a little water sitting in some of them while I am cleaning the storms and screens before putting them back in. Is it possible that they came in that quickly, i.e., within a day of having that situation? I am putting them back in slowly but surely and just want to have a handle on how urgent it may be because it's a bit of a PITA and not fast, especially when I am trying to get it done in between soccer games, work and some other stuff.

As for the bees, we seem to get them this time every year and then they are gone. Not sure if they are carpenter bees, but they are huge.

ETA: Just looked up images of carpenter bees. That's not what these are. These are just big MF bumblebees of some sort.

You would not get a colony that fast, but if the rangers find the right combination of water and tunnelinng opportunity they will try to establish one. Getting wood wet once or twice won’t sustain the colony. The water infiltration has to be recurrent.

 

[Dove]

@UConnTrumbull ... make this fun. Kill them all with a hammer.

 

[Dove]

Thanks. So does that mean I already have a carpenter ant problem, or just a potential one? We had our house power washed on Friday and I removed all the storms and screens so that the outer-facing window sashes would get cleaned, but it's an older house--built in 1966--so it has older sills and there was a little water sitting in some of them while I am cleaning the storms and screens before putting them back in. Is it possible that they came in that quickly, i.e., within a day of having that situation? I am putting them back in slowly but surely and just want to have a handle on how urgent it may be because it's a bit of a PITA and not fast, especially when I am trying to get it done in between soccer games, work and some other stuff.

As for the bees, we seem to get them this time every year and then they are gone. Not sure if they are carpenter bees, but they are huge.

ETA: Just looked up images of carpenter bees. That's not what these are. These are just big MF bumblebees of some sort.

I live within 6 miles of you. I was buzzed by three bumble bees yesterday.

 

[UConnTrumbull]

@UConnTrumbull ... make this fun. Kill them all with a hammer.

That’s been my move so far

 

[WlfdHusky]

15 years ago I bought my first house. I rained all month and we had carpenter ants. Called an exterminator. $300.00. 1 month later more ants. They re-applied. 1 month later more ants. The next year they came back I bough COMBAT MAX gel. Located the ants points of entry and paths and put the gel out. 1st night was creepy. Several hundred ants clustered in a few paces in the living room. 24 hours later - no more ants. For several years. In 15 years I have used this product 3 times. Each time it works great. It costs about $4.00. It has a delayed poison they bring back to colony and kills the entire colony. It works best if you know the points of location to your house or their paths outside. If you don't know that, an exterminator might be better. But a $4.00 option is definitely worth trying first. You should be able to find this stuff anywhere or order from Amazon.

 

[Dove]

That’s been my move so far

Yeah! Kill those rangers!