Focusing On Pest Control

If your home has a crawl space, keeping it free of unwanted pests can be a constant concern. Keeping carpenter ants from colonizing your crawl space is particularly important. If left unchecked, these voracious, wood-boring ants can do serious structural damage to your home.

Why Are Carpenter Ants Attracted To Crawl Spaces?

Unlike termites and powderpost beetles, carpenter ants do not consume wood for food. Instead, they chew through timber structures to create their nests, often known as galleries. Over time, a small colony of carpenter ants can completely hollow out a piece of timber as they create space for their workers and larvae.

Like most insect species, carpenter ants are also attracted to moist, humid. They breathe through tiny holes in their exoskeletons, and if their exoskeletons completely dry out, these holes close and the ant suffocates. During the dry summer months, carpenter ants will range far and wide searching for damp, shaded spaces to build their colonies.

Unfortunately, this combination of factors makes the average residential crawl space an excellent home for carpenter ants. The wooden joists and support piers that support your home's subfloor are ideal for creating ant galleries, especially if they have absorbed moisture due to poor maintenance. The bare earth floor allows ants to access these timber sources easily, and also contributes to the high humidity levels found in most crawl spaces.

How Can You Detect Carpenter Ants In Your Crawl Space?

Carpenter ants are larger than most ant species and generally easy to recognize, but because they spend most of their time in hiding, it may be difficult to spot the ants themselves.

An easier way to spot carpenter ant infestations is to look for the piles of frass they leave behind. This sawdust-like substance is left behind when the ants chew through wood sources, and collects in piles around infested wooden structures. If you see any frass piles in your crawl space, you can safely assume that carpenter ants or other wood-boring insects are in the area.

If your crawl space contains a large colony, you may also be able to hear the carpenter ants moving around through your subfloor, especially on warm, quiet nights. If you hear rustling or crackling sounds, you may be dealing with a serious infestation.

How Are Carpenter Ants Removed From Crawl Spaces?

If you suspect carpenter ants have colonized your crawl space, call in a professional pest control service as soon as possible to tackle the infestation. Because carpenter ants live deep within protective wooden structures, it can be almost impossible to remove them effectively with consumer-grade sprays and powders. 

Your pest control service will inspect your crawl space for carpenter ant colonies, and will also sweep other areas of your home to make sure the ants have not spread. Once the colony's location has been found, they will deploy commercial-strength insecticides, which penetrate deep into hidden colonies.

Your service may also deploy bait stations within your crawl space. These stations are baited with food sources containing a slow-acting insecticide, which the ants will carry back to their colonies for other ants to feed on. These slow-acting poisons are often the most effective way to kill ant queens and larvae.

Once the colony has been eradicated, your pest control service can also help to prevent future infestations in your crawl space. They may recommend removing stored objects, sealing ventilation ducts, or installing a vapor barrier to reduce moisture levels. If your crawl space is particularly vulnerable, you might want to consider having it fully encapsulated.

For more information, contact a pest control company such as Monterey Bay Pest Control Inc.