carpenter ants in couch

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Hi, my friends have carpenter ants in their new home and have had it treated by Orkin.  We just took a leather couch from their house and it is sitting in our garage.  Are we ok to move that couch in to our house or might it have carpenter ants?  What can we do to be sure we do not move them in to our house?

Carpenter ants are generally larger than most other ants. They’re also skittish and can sense people and other threatening situations. When threatened, they tend to protect their nest and will many times avoid leading predators to their door. If the couch you have in your garage had any ants on it or nesting in it, there is no doubt you would have seen ant activity either during the moving of it from the house to the transport vehicle or when taking it off the vehicle and bringing it inside your garage. You don’t say if you observed seeing any ants on the couch at any time but I’m guessing if you did, the couch would have quickly been taken off your property based on your line of questions above. If my guess is right, then if you haven’t seen any ants on the couch thus far, it’s safe to assume it’s ant free.

At this time I suggest you take a little time to review our CARPENTER ANT CONTROL ARTICLE which gets into great detail most everything you’d need to know about this ant which could prove helpful for future reference. Carpenter Ants can cover a lot of ground, chew through most any wood and will bite if antagonized. Undoubtedly a major pest problem throughout the world, carpenter ants are like termites in that most people fear them but and are also seemingly content not to learn about them. This is a mistake and something you should avoid. Learning about this pest can really help if you are ever faced with an actual infestation and need to take a pro active course of correction. If nothing else, our article will serve to better educate and prepare you for making a hiring decision if you decide to get a pest control company to handle some future problem.

This article can be found here:

Carpenter Ant Control:  http://www.carpenterants.com/carpenter-ant-control

signs of carpenter ants

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I have a lot of big black ants walking up and down a fence post attached to my house. It looks like they’re crawling into a joint where two boards meet and there is a lot of sawdust coming out of this joint. I think these ants have done damage to the wood there but before I do anything I’m wondering if I should be prepared to spray something. This joint is only 5 ft from my house and if I don’t do anything, I’m sure the ants will get into my house.

Carpenter ant signs include leaving a sawdust or frass which is essentially a by product of all their chewing. As explained in our CARPENTER ANT CONTROL article, they do a good job of chewing through wood but don’t in fact eat any of it. Based on your description, it sounds like you have them in this fence and probably at this joint too.

I suggest you get some DRIONE DUST and CYPERMETHRIN. Fill one of our HAND DUSTERS with the Drione and have it alongside you when you take the fence apart so it’s ready to use. I’m pretty sure you’ll uncover a nest and the Drione will be ideal to use for the treatment. Once you complete the work at that joint, I suggest you dust each of all the other joints you have to insure there aren’t any other satellite nests on the fence. The Drione will do a much better job than a liquid spray treatment.

Once the fence has been treated, finish the work by doing a foundation spraying using the Cypermethrin. This will insure straggler ants won’t find their way into your home.