How To Get Rid Of Carpenter Ants In Your Home And Yard

Carpenter ants can invade your yard, your trees and your home. They look like giant ants and can be quite scary if you have them in your home. They can also bite, although they aren't poisonous. These ants need to be controlled whether they are in your yard of your home. See below for tips to get rid of carpenter ants.

Inside Your Home

Take a look at the carpenter ants and watch their movement. Keep an eye out on where they are entering your home. If there is a hole anywhere or damage to your home, make the repair to help block them from coming in. They spray the area where they are coming in. You can also set bait in that location to help confine them. Use 1/2 cup of powdered sugar combined with 1/2 cup of borax. Combine the ingredients and place them into a shallow dish or an old lid. Place the bait where you see the ants coming inside. They won't go throughout your home looking for food, they'll feed right where the bait is. The borax will kill the ants when ingested. Replace the bait when needed. This is a great way to kill ants without using an actual pesticide in your home.

Next, go outside of your home to the entrance point and spray the area with a pesticide or sprinkle a pesticide outside of your home to get rid of any ants you see.

Outside Your Home

Outside your home these ants can also exist. They can live in your mulch or in trees surrounding your yard, which is how they end up in your home. These ants should also be controlled as they can destroy the trees in your yard. Get rid of the mulch around your home, as this can be a great nesting space for carpenter ants and other ants as well. Also get rid of any brush piles or wood piles, as this can also be a great place for ants to nest.

If you have ants all over your trees, they could be tunneling through your trees until they become petrified. You need to kill these ants as well before you end up with dead trees in your yard. Sprinkle a granular pesticide around the base of the tree. Sprinkle it again and again until you no longer have ants. You can also spray the ants that you see to help kill them faster.

Carpenter ants can be a pain to deal with and can be scary to find in your home. Call pest control, specifically an ant control specialist, for help getting control of these ants.