Are you enjoying your modern home rich in wooden structures? Though complementing to the aesthetic features of your home, those same features, under the right conditions, can attract carpenter ants. Carpenter ants have been known to cause significant damage to the structure of a home, causing expensive repairs or even tearing the entire structure down. Out of all species, carpenter ants are most dreaded by homeowners, creating the demand for pest control experts in Niagara Falls.

Why are Carpenter Ants so Dangerous for Homes?

They damage the wood. Plain and simple. And they also do it fast, which means they can cause noticeable damage soon after they inhabit a house. Normally, carpenter ants feed both with plant and animal matter, which means they’re drawn be any organic residue in a home.

To create a nest in a home, carpenter ants will burrow through wooden structure, leaving sawdust-like wooden residue behind. Often times, a colony of carpenter ants can enter your home, damaging its structure, while remaining largely undetected. Without being able to recognize the signs of an infestation, you may not even know you have one until it’s too late.

Why Carpenter Ants Attack Homes?

Heat, moisture and the softness of the wooden structures are the main reasons why carpenter ants will inhabit a home. Most often, they’re a sign of wood-decay problems. Some of the more common locations in your home that will attract the ants are the building trims, steps, windows, as well as the frame of the house.

Carpenter ants enter homes through wall cracks, holes in doors and attics. They can also find their way in using untrimmed branches and bushes near windows and rooftops. There are a couple of ways to get rid of carpenter ants and prevent them from coming back again.

Prevention against carpenter ants includes clearing out the home and the exterior space and removing damp, moldy and decaying wood. Make sure to address the moisture issue seriously, and repair wet and rotten wooden elements and surfaces in your home. To avoid drawing carpenter ants, make sure to store all foods in containers and not leave them out in the open. Your pantry and storage, as well as the kitchen cupboards, should be clean and all supplies stored in plastic containers.

If you have taken the necessary preventative measures and still experience a carpenter ant infestation in your Niagara home, it would be best to hire professional pest control services. You can try to remove the ants on your own, but overseeing a couple of details related to their living habits could lead to repeated infestations.

It won’t be as easy as applying insecticides across the ant routes. You will have to locate the main nest and treat this specifically. Beware however as carpenter ants are known to set up additional “satellite” nests not too far from the main nest. This means that the nest in your home might not be the main one, while the larger one could be located somewhere outside. If you apply insecticide not knowing where the main nest is, you could face repeated infestations.

Feeling Overwhelmed by Carpenter Ants? Call Truly Nolen Niagara

All things considered, a carpenter ant infestation might be too complex for an average homeowner to handle. If you don’t understand all technical aspects of inspecting the terrain and placing the insecticide in just the right spot, your efforts will be in vain. To avoid this, hire a pest control company to handle your Niagara Falls home infestation. Truly Nolen Niagara technicians understand the seasonal changes in the living cycle of carpenter ants. After an inspection, they will diagnose the severity of the infestation and suggest further measure. If repairs and adjustments aren’t enough to keep your home pest-free, we will use biodegradable, eco-friendly pesticides to exterminate them.