Find out from our experts in our podcast if you have a carpenter ant infestation in your home.

Transcription:

Interviewer: How do I know if I have a carpenter ant infestation?

Interviewee: Carpenter ants are those big, black suckers you see around the house. Now, ants are amorphic, which means they don’t change. You don’t have baby ants, and adult ants, and big ants. Carpenter ants are the more sizeable of the ants you might see. Not the little red or black ones you see around the kitchen sink. In areas of high concentration of moisture, you’ll see good half an inch, quarter of an inch sized ants. Some of them have wings, some of them don’t have wings. Some of them are a little bit smaller. What you’re going to see for carpenter ants — if they’re damaging your house, if they’ve established a nest — they might actually chew through the wood rather than ingesting the wood. They actually chew through it to make a little gallery. We see the frass of the sawdust, coming down from where they’re nesting. You might see a trail going up and down the outside of your house, around the foundation. To and from a tree, or a hole in the ground where they’re nesting.

Interviewer: Is it safe to have my house treated for carpenter ants?

Interviewee: Treating for carpenter ants is a liquid chemical process, most of the time. We do try to find any kind of nesting activity within the home. Eradicate the nest as directly as possible. We treat the entire exterior foundation, as well as the ground around the foundation of your home. If we can find an exterior colony, we can actually treat the colony itself, before they get to your house.

Treating the house, you want to be out of it for a few hours. We do recommend that. The chemicals we use are much more on the safe side. But, keeping and maintaining presence, of some type of chemical barrier around your house to prevent future infestations, is really the key. The more you prevent, the less you’ll have to address within the home, the safer everyone will be.