Question from Joy
Does anyone have a safe, successful way to get rid of carpenter ants? They are eating my window frame and the framing in the walls.
Debra’s Answer
Readers, and experience with this?
I had carpenter ants in my little cabin in the woods in California and I just vacuumed them out of the walls when I opened them up for remodeling, and that was it. They may have returned, I don’t know.
This also works: Mix a sticky solution of table sugar, borax powder and water. (use less borax than sugar or the ants will not eat it…e.g. 4:1 ratio). This also takes a while to work, but they do eventually disappear.
One part each sugar, molasses, and baker’s yeast. Spread the mixture out onto cardboard cards (it will be very thick and sticky) and leave them out wherever you see the ants. The yeast is toxic to them. It does take a few weeks to see results though.
Carpenter ants build nests in wet wood. If you have carpenter ants, you most likely have a leak in your home that’s creating favorable conditions for the ants. The two suggestions for killing the ants will work, but the wet/damp condition still remains, which will be attractive to carpenter ants in the future. Locate the cause of the wet wood and you’ll permanently eliminate carpenter ants.
We had carpenter ants coming into the kitchen through the kitchen sink area. I went outside and found from where they were coming and then, in the early evening, before it was dark but after the ants had gone back into the ground, I poured a kettle of boiling water into the hole of the ant nest (hill ). I’ve done this about four times in my life when the ants where in a location where they would either get into the house or sting us in the garden and, it has worked each time.
We also used the Table Sugar/Mule Team Borax/Water mixture in approximately a 2:1:1 ratio to get rid of Carpenter Ants in the house last year. We dipped cotton balls in the mixture, placed them on paper plates and put the paper plates outside the perimeter of the house, around the kitchen (including the kitchen counter, yes I know this is gross) and around the basement. It was tempting to kill the ants as they feasted upon the cotton balls, but we let them eat and take the poison back to the nest. We had to refresh the cotton balls a couple times, but within 2-3 weeks there were no more ants. There must have been 200-300 carpenter ants lying dead inside and outside of the house. The good news is that not one single carpenter ant has been seen inside the house this spring.
I did the same with Borax powder and sugar and water. They went right for it, but the only problem was that they would get “stuck” in the syrup and die there, and it was impossible for me to see how they would then be able to get it back to their nest. However, after about 2 days, the ants had stopped appearing and all that was left were dead ants that had drowned in the mixture. I have my doubts that the ants were able to get it back to their nest and that it had in fact killed the whole colony, but they are no longer coming out from whence the came!! After it was all cleaned up, I put some diatomaceous earth in the crack where they had been coming from just to make sure they would stay away. No ants since. I hope they are not in the walls just eating away at the wood still.
diatomateous earth gently spread around will get rid of the ants but if your youngster has asthma keep the powder away from him. The Borax idea from Pat is better if he will react to the powder from the diatomateous earth.
Dahliyahttp://www.nontoxic.com