Catching Carpenter Ants Early In The Dallas-Fort Worth Area

The Texas heat is at a peak now in July. This summer has hopefully afforded us many opportunities to engage in the outdoor activities we love to do. Unfortunately, we aren’t the only ones taking up particular activities. Carpenter ants are summertime pests that build their nests in Dallas and Fort Worth homes, gutting the wood. 

Pest control in the Dallas-Fort Worth area is necessary from March to September to stop these infestations from causing critical damage.

Where Are Typical Carpenter Ant Nesting Sites?

Carpenter ants can set up multiple satellite nests, each group nibbling away in different locations. Carpenter ants in trees in the yard could migrate into the house. Possible sites for carpenter ant nests are:

• Tree hollows
• Logs
• Wood structures
• Landscaping timber
• Moist wood

These ants are different from termites because they don’t use wood as food. Instead, they burrow and chomp away to clear out galleries for their colony. Moisture tends to attract them, so places with leaky pipes in the walls would be a prime spot to find them.

Is It Possible To Hear Carpenter Ants Chewing At A Wall?

At Bug Busters of Texas, we can tell you we’ve had many clients tell us they’ve heard these six-legged chewers. If you’re quiet enough, you will hear them gnawing away at the wood, though they will most likely not be visible.

Other signs of carpenter ants having nests in your home are:

• Conical piles of sawdust
• Removed wood detritus
• Carpenter ants in your house crawling back to their colony

Carpenter ants like to forage at night. This would be a good time to find even one of these black carpenter ants in your home and follow them. It can lead to discovering their galleries. As well, you’ll likely see piles of sawdust accumulate under spots where they’ve been chewing. Lastly, carpenter ant swarmers on your Dallas-Fort Worth area property will come out at night to reproduce. So be on the lookout.

What Not To Do About Carpenter Ant Damage

An infestation can grow for years without being noticed. The main thing not to do is ignore the signs. A single ant might seem negligible, but it indicates there’s a colony nearby. This could mean your walls.

Handling carpenter ants in Dallas and Fort Worth is an urgent issue to avoid substantial damage. We highly recommend you:

• Don’t ignore noises in the walls.
• Don’t rely on DIY methods.
• Don’t assume the infestation is gone if one site is eradicated. 

Carpenter ants can mine out large networks in your home. They can be well-protected, too, hiding behind drywall, insulation, and then their galleries in the wood. If you drill in and fill an area with insecticide, it will kill some of them, but most will escape and carry their young away. 

In addition, successfully neutralizing an area infested with carpenter ants might just be the start of a much larger problem. Colonies can be completely separated from each other, and refugees from attacked colonies might reconvene at locations you don’t know are infested.

Carpenter Ant Extermination In Dallas-Fort Worth Area

Professional assistance is a must with carpenter ants. They can seem impossible to oust from your home, but we have specific ways of dealing with multiple nests. A pest control professional will:

• Apply dust material.
• Perform perimeter treatments.
• Find every nest.
• Apply nest treatments.

A professional will use a pesticide dust bulb to get deep into the excavated areas. We will treat both inside and outside areas so the floating dust pesticides get at the carpenter ants from every direction. Professionals also scout out and incapacitate entryways for these pests, using methods to bait workers into bringing pesticides to the queens. 

Bug Busters of Texas, our family-operated company, has been dealing with carpenter ant infestations for 25 years, and we know what to look for. We believe everyone in the Dallas-Fort Worth area deserves peace of mind, so you can call us for a free inspection and a 100% satisfaction guarantee.