Carpenter ants can be a major menace on your Katy property, especially when you leave this pest untreated. To properly prevent and treat carpenter ants, you need to understand what attracts them and invest in ongoing professional assistance.
What Attracts Carpenter Ants?
Carpenter ants are one of the largest ant species that you may encounter around your Katy property. This ant is blackish with a strong set of jaws that it uses to eat or tunnel through areas of wood, hence the name carpenter ant. Here are some common items that may attract carpenter ants to your property:
- Like most ants, carpenter ants enjoy proteins and sugars around your home. Their food search may result in them invading food storage areas for items, such as stored sweets, grains, cereals, and pet foods.
- Carpenter ants often eat dead insects. If you have a number of these around your property, it’s a good idea to clean up and declutter.
- Carpenter ants like the honeydew secretion from aphids. Keeping up a pest control routine on your plants can help eliminate aphids and reduce the chances of carpenter ants entering your property in search of this secretion.
Do Carpenter Ants Eat Wood?
Carpenter ants don’t actually eat wood. Instead, this pest tunnels through areas of the wood to create hollow nests for themselves. Over time, a carpenter ant infestation in your home can cause significant damage due to this tunneling. This may cause sinking floors, structure collapse, and broken furniture or support structures if the ants are left alone to continually make their colonies.
Additionally, carpenter ants are incredibly difficult to eliminate because of how they invade your home. They also are very skilled at evading most DIY ant removal products.
To prevent this pest from returning to your home, it’s essential to eliminate the main nest and not just the satellite colonies. Professional ant control is the best way to fully eradicate this insect from your home.
Signs Of Carpenter Ants
The following signs of carpenter ants are things that you need to look out for to ensure that you don’t have an infestation of this pest starting around your property:
- As carpenter ants tunnel, they will kick out frass, something that looks like fine wood shavings. You can find frass near entry points into your walls, such as along baseboards, door jambs, and windowsills. Lots of frass indicates a serious carpenter ant problem.
- Carpenter ants are primarily nocturnal, and this is when you can hear them in your walls. A soft rustling noise at night can indicate that the ants are tunneling and creating destruction in your home.
- Shed wings from swarmer ants may be found near windowsills, door jambs, and along baseboards. You may also see winged ants around your home, something that usually means you have a full-blown infestation of this pest.
How To Get Rid Of Carpenter Ants In Your Katy Home
If you want to know how to keep carpenter ants away, your best option is to call the professionals at All-Safe Pest & Termite. We can help you understand how to get rid of carpenter ants and provide you with targeted, effective treatments that allow you to claim your home back from the damage that these pests cause. For more information about solving your carpenter ant problem, reach out to the professionals at All-Safe Pest & Termite today!