Out in your driveway you spot a line of large black ants. Inside your home you see these same ants roaming throughout your kitchen and bathroom. You spot tiny holes in wooden structures found within your home, and then at night you are sitting in your living room and start to hear “chewing” sounds behind your walls. What does this all add up to? Well, there is a good chance that carpenter ants have invaded your New York home! Carpenter ants are an extremely damaging pest and the experts at Thomas Pest Services want to provide you with some helpful information about them, including the most important information-how to get rid of them from your home!
Carpenter ants are a fairly large species of ant that are typically black but can also be red or a combination of both red and black. Adults can grow to between ¼ and ½ of an inch in length, and queens can be even larger. In general, if you are finding big black ants in your home they are carpenter ants, but it is always a good idea to get a professional inspection to make sure that you are properly identifying the species of ant that has decided to invade your home.
Carpenter ants typically live outside, but may enter your home while foraging for food or water because they have been drawn to decaying or damp wood found in and around your home. Once inside, they may enter the structural wood of your home and start excavating it to create tunnels and galleries to nest in while using crumbs and other food found within your home as their own personal buffet. If left untreated carpenter ants can cause a lot of costly damage to your home.
You may be tempted to try and treat these damaging pests on your own by running down to the local big box store and purchasing a product advertised to control carpenter ants. But, this really isn’t a good idea. DIY carpenter ant control products are not extremely effective; and if they are not mixed or used properly, they can be very dangerous for you, your children, your pets, and even your plants. Also, you can’t get rid of an infestation by simply spraying or treating the ants you see wandering around your driveway or kitchen; all of the nesting areas need to be located and treated. And finally if you don’t fix the “what and how” of your carpenter ant problem- what is attracting the ants to your home and property, and how are they entering - a re-infestation will quickly re-occur.
Carpenter ants are a damaging pest, and getting professional help for an infestation sooner rather than later is vital to the structural integrity of your home. Professionals have the patience, experience, knowledge, and up-to-date technology needed to correctly identify a carpenter ant infestation, and to provide safe treatments, exclusion techniques, and on-going maintenance to help prevent future problems with these pests.
Thomas Pest Services can provide treatment for a carpenter ant infestation in your New York home through our very effective carpenter ant control services. To speak to one of our professionals about carpenter ant control, call us today!