It’s probably been a while since you’ve seen an ant, right? They were all over the place this summer but, now that winter is here and the weather is cold, they’ve disappeared entirely. Or have they?
While most species of ants do go dormant during winter, carpenter ants sometimes remain active all year long. Unfortunately, these are the same ants that cause the most problems for homeowners.
Think about it. Sugar ants can be a nuisance each summer and they may cause you to lose a bit of money on food you must throw away, but they don’t damage your home. They’re only a temporary problem, and they leave you alone once fall arrives.
Carpenter ants, on the other hand, may not raid your stored food but, when they get in your home, they do can do far worse. They damage the structure of your house, sometimes to the point of making it unsound. Carpenter ants don’t just work away in the hot summer months, then disappear for the rest of the year. They eat away at the wooden structures of your home all year long.
How Carpenter Ants Remain Active All Year
As long as a carpenter ant colony is situated close enough to a home to receive some of its warmth, it can survive the winter. If it can survive the winter, those ants will remain active twelve months of the year, working diligently around and in your home. They dig tunnels and burrow into wooden beams. Given the time and a large enough population, carpenter ants can cause serious damage to your home, costing you thousands of dollars in repairs.
How to Identify A Carpenter Ant Infestation
Carpenter ants spend most of their time hidden away underground or in the tunnels they build, so you don’t often see them even if they have infested your home. They are easy to identify them because they are the large ants with wings.
Other signs of a carpenter ant infestation that don’t involve seeing the ants themselves include seeing small piles of sawdust (frass) near wooden surfaces in your home. Carpenter ants clear the wood shavings out of the tunnel they’re building to keep it neat, so that waste usually ends up outside the hole they’ve dug.
You may notice bulging or sagging walls or floors, or doors that don’t close properly. While these are not always signs of a carpenter ant infestation, they certainly could be. These signs do require further inspection since they indicate damage of some kind, and the cause should be discovered and corrected.
How To Rid Your Home Of Carpenter Ants
If you see the above signs and think you may have a carpenter ant problem, an inspection by trained professionals is your best option. The pest control technicians at Quik-Kill Pest Eliminators have the training and experience to accurately identify a carpenter ant infestation. If a carpenter ant problem is discovered, we can identify where they’re nesting and can help you choose the treatment option that best suits your commercial or residential properties unique situation in the Davenport and throughout the Quad-City area's.
Carpenter ants are year-round pests that are far more than a simple nuisance. Keep your home free of them with the help of Quik-Kill. We are always here to help!