Preventive measures include eliminating stumps, storing firewood away from the house and off the ground, reducing humidity and preventing structural wood from getting wet.
Repair plumbing leaks, improve the ventilation in crawl spaces and make roof or structural repairs.
Improving ventilation will be especially helpful in basements, attics and crawl spaces.
Look in places most likely to harbor moist wood, such as porch floors and columns, eaves, sills, roof joints, and in the wood below leaking roof gutters.
Keeping trees and bushes from touching the house will reduce the chances of foraging ants coming indoors. We recommend at least 12” between the structure and foliage.
Remove or minimize ground cover around the foundation. This allows Carpenter Ants to move freely and prevents natural predators from seeing them.
Seeing excavated shavings (frass) does not typically show the colony nest location.
The nest is the place where you find ant pupae and larvae.
The Primary colony is typically outside and within 100 yards or 300’ of the Satellite colony often inside a structure.
Foragers in small numbers are often seen in early Spring searching for food sources.
If you see 10 or more Carpenter Ants at any one time inside a structure in March or April, it is a clear sign of a structural Satellite colony.
These Satellite colonies typically have nests of several thousand ants if left untreated.
