March is the start of springtime, and who isn’t ready for the long, dark winter to end? One creature who loves the spring is the carpenter ant!

Carpenter ants work with wood, but not in ways homeowners appreciate. Rather than, say, build a cupboard or a table, carpenter ants tend to chew through damp wood, causing property damage along the way.

A woodpecker does to trees what carpenter ants do to homes. Let’s take a closer look at carpenter ants’ tendencies and diets of carpenter ants to understand GreenLeaf Pest Control’s approach to uprooting any infestation.

How do Carpenter Ants Live?

There’s a reason hunters stalk their prey before going in for the kill. Pest control experts understand how pests live so they can target them more effectively.

Carpenter ants get their names from the way they nest in buildings by excavating the wood until they form smooth tunnels. They don’t eat the wood, but they tunnel and chew to form nests. There’s a fair amount to tunnel since the group populations are large!

For example, the western black carpenter ant colony contains between 10,000-20,000 workers when mature, and large colonies contain more than 50,000. Seeing one or two ants in your home may not seem like a big deal, but more or likely lying around the corner.

GreenLeaf Pest Control is proud to offer carpenter ant extermination that gives you peace of mind. You won’t see any ants, so you won’t fear there’s a colony somewhere nearby under your roof.

How to Recognize When Carpenter Ants Are Around?

Knowing the signs of a carpenter ant infestation can help you address the problem sooner. Obviously, seeing the presence of workers and swarmers is a great indicator. Other than that, the most reliable sign is the appearance of small openings in the wood.

You’ll see ants expel debris through these holes the more they hollow them out. The debris includes sawdust-like shavings, parts of your home’s insulation, and potentially other insect parts. If you see an opening like this, you know there’s almost definitely an active infestation.

The walls of the opening will look sandpapered and smooth. They gravitate towards damp wood that’s easier to chew through. Keeping this in mind will help you spot the infestation sooner when it’ll be easier to eliminate.

What Do Carpenter Ants Eat?

You can’t glean the carpenter ants’ diet from their name. Indeed, as mentioned, they don’t eat wood. They may eat a wide variety of foods, but they’ll also damage your home’s wooden structures until they find what they’re looking for.

Carpenter ants manage to eat both plant and animal matter. Natural food sources are insects, other small invertebrates, and sweet body fluids from insects like aphids. The common foods that attract ants include any protein or sweet foods you leave lying around the home — foraging worker carpenter ants are liable to gobble that up.

Carpenter ants, like all creatures, need a water source to survive.

How To Prevent a Carpenter Ant Infestation

To control ants in your house, you can pre-emptively prevent them from entering by removing a water source. Keep tree branches and other plants cut far back from your home, so pests can’t use them to get inside.

Seal up any openings or cracks in your home with a silicone-based caulk, especially around doors and windows. Keep construction materials and firewood away from the home, as carpenter ants make nests in them.

If it’s too late to prevent an ant infestation, you need the best ant extermination in Toronto and the GTA.

How We Uproot a Carpenter Ant Infestation

If prevention doesn’t work, it’s time to call GreenLeaf Pest Control! We have specialized knowledge about carpenter ants and all other types of pests, which we use to target them effectively.

Our customized spray treatments can’t be found on store shelves. Relying on commercially available traps or sprays will dent the carpenter ant population, but it won’t get rid of it entirely. Even if you cut the pest population in your home in half, they can reproduce quickly.

If you’re dealing with thousands of ants, you may not even notice a reduction in their numbers, especially if they reproduce and grow back in time.

GreenLeaf Pest Control’s expertise helps us find their nests, so we can bait them properly. We have the equipment and training to get rid of your carpenter ant problem for good.

You might see this common pest or the damage they leave behind and wonder if you have carpenter ants or termites. If you’re unsure, call us! Termites do eat wood, whereas carpenter ants don’t. But you don’t need to know the details about each pest — that’s our job.

GreenLeaf Pest Control is also happy to give you our Home Protection Plan service, which proactively ensures your home remains pest-free. March is the season for carpenter ants to emerge from their slumber and look for somewhere nice and warm to nest.

To ensure they don’t pick your house, we’ll visit the property and conduct an inspection for any attractants and any carpenter ants. We’ll remove anything that draws carpenter ants into your home and any ants we may find.

Next, we’ll do a preventative treatment, so they’re actively discouraged from going near your home rather than merely not enticed inwards. Finally, we’ll revisit the property a few times to ensure the treatment was a success and your home is entirely pest-free.

If, for some reason, carpenter ants survived all these layers of protection, we eliminate them free of charge.

You want to feel in control of your home, which requires shutting the door on all pests. Carpenter ants pose a significant risk to the property. They might not bite you, but they can really damage your home.

For Toronto pest control specialists who can handle your ant infestation and keep the thousands of tiny nuisances out, call GreenLeaf Pest Control today!