Besides termites, carpenter ants can cause a serious problem to your home. Although the creatures don’t eat the wooden structure of your dwelling, their presence literally is damaging.
The big black ants often build their nest and colony inside moist wooden objects. How they invade your place and ruin it must drive anyone crazy.
To get over this, there is no way better other than trying these tips on how to get rid of carpenter ants.
1. Find out Where the Ants’ Nest is

Before applying the approaches of throwing out the carpenter ants in house, it’s vital that you locate their home first. It’s not that easy to find out the nest unless you trace the dark ants to their source.
In common, the animals love a moist spot with decaying wooden materials. Hence, figure out an area or furniture that looks damp. It can be the ants’ favorite to thrive and breed.
There are some tips to follow if you are about to locate the nest. First of all, search sawdust-like wood debris named frass. Once you spot this, it indicates that the big black ants dwell within easy reach of it.
If your wooden furniture experiences damage, the possibility of being invaded by the insects is nothing but high. Unless you are successful looking for the structure, you can attract them with sweets and take full advantage of their trail.
2. Pour the Boiled Water over the Nest
Once the nest is fruitfully found out, it’s time to prepare another method, e.g. boiling some water then pouring it over the nest.
This way might sound extreme and require extra guard for homeowners; however, the purpose of doing this is to strike the black ants’ colony out.
In order to be more effective, you can mix the boiled water with other substances such as soap, essential oil, and not to mention the insecticide that’s soluble in water.
Read also: How to Make a Homemade Ant Trap
3. Make Use of the Toxic Bait
Carpenter ant damage literally is devastating so that an efficacious method to kill the insects like using the toxic bait is highly needed. This way is great when the nest of them is inaccessible or even hidden.
The bait likely works slowly but it effectively lets the ants’ population poisoned.
How to make it? Just provide toxic gel bait for ant carpenter and combine the product with milk and sugar. The measurement of each sweet is one spoon.
After noticing where the black ants populate, immediately lure them with the toxic bait. Instead of having a go with fast acting, get the slow one for optimization.
Consequently, opt for toxic bait that goes with three days of work.
Remember, you don’t need to end the life of the workers but also the queens – carpenter ant with wings. And don’t ever try to spray the chemical directly on the nest. This act will trigger other ants to build other nests instead.
4. Essential Oils are Friendly Option
Unless you agree with the early ideas probably unsafe for you, you can try this friendlier option – benefitting the essential oils.
They actually function to disrupt the pheromone trails made by the black, crawling creatures.
Turning out that the viscous liquid has a capability in disorienting all elements of them including the flying carpenter ants.
The essential grease used covers lemon, peppermint, lemongrass, clove, and tea tree oil.
5. Use Straight Dusting Method
If the access to ants’ nest is found to be trouble-free, you can have this alternative—applying the direct dusting method. There are basically two types of dust to choose from.
Diatomaceous earth is such a brilliant preference friendlier to the environment.
It’s known for its nontoxic quality coming with no poisons. Despite so, it remains stunning to kill carpenter ants. Another variety is delta dust. Unfortunately, it can increase the health risk.
Read also: How to Get Rid of Sugar Ants like a Pro
6. Get Rid of the Ants with Easy-to-Make Soda Bait

For safety and budget reason, soda bait made up of sugar, and baking soda is eventually poor to be missed out on. This type of carpenter ant bait appears to be more natural than the rests.
It requires a trick when it comes to placing the soda bait. Our recommendation is by putting the mixture in an area with the highest ant traffic.
Sugar itself has a role to attract the winged and crawling insects while the soda is to take the life of the animals.
In addition to the soda-related bait, the carpenter ant infestation at your home is able to be ended with the boric acid bait. To get this chemical, you can hit a store selling garden supply.
For the sake of usefulness, you must blend the acid bait with powdered sugar. The ratio between the sweet and bait is one to three. Simply locate the solution around the affected area.
7. Call an Ant Exterminator to Eradicate the Carpenter Ant Infestation
No matter how hard you deal with the carpenter ants and you find no completion, there is nothing greater other than ringing up an ant exterminator. This way is somewhat the most expensive one.
On the other hand, it saves not only your energy but also your time. For a one-time visit, the ant exterminator cost usually sets you back from 150 to 300 USD.
The price also depends on how complicated the exterminating task is.
8. How to Prevent the Ants’ Coming back

Once your ants’ elimination is victorious, it’s time to think about ways to deter the ants’ coming back. For better prevention, you have to clean the floor and particularly the wooden structure regularly.
Make sure that you fix the leakage problem well to avoid moist environment. To seal your home, you are able to take full advantage of caulk. And finally, clean up the outdoors like raking the organic debris on a regular basis.
Read also: How to Remove Silicone Caulking
To be brief, the procedures on how to get rid of carpenter ants are a bit trickier compared to other eliminating actions.
Not only do you need to get the finest solution killing the ants but you are required to mull over the impacts whether they are harmful to your surroundings or not.