Carpenter ants can. They excavate galleries in structural wood and prefer lumber already softened by moisture. You can tell you have carpenter ants if you see coarse sawdust piles and large black ants indoors, especially by damp areas.
Ants are annoying, but for the most part, harmless. Odorous house ants raid your sugar bowl. Pavement ants push little soil volcanoes up through seams in the driveway and wander in for crumbs. They’re hygiene problems more than anything. But this is not the case for carpenter ants.
Carpenter ants are some of the largest ones you’ll see indoors. Usually, they’re black, but sometimes they have reddish tones. They don’t eat wood, but they do carve it. They’ll chew out smooth galleries to house their colony. They push debris out through slit openings. This debris is one of the better warnings of their presence: it’s sawdust, called frass, and you might often see it with insect fragments in it. It tends to show up under windowsills, along basement beams, or below porch posts. If you see large ants indoors in the winter, that’s another sign, as is hearing a faint, dry rustling in the walls on a quiet night.
If you notice carpenter ants, the other thing you should know is that they prefer damp wood. That means you probably have a leak somewhere, perhaps in the roof or around a pipe. So dealing with them means fixing the leak and getting rid of the ants.
As for dealing with carpenter ants, you need to call a professional since there is structural damage involved. They can help you locate and treat the colony, including its satellite nests, as well as figure out what to do about the moisture problem that drew them in. You can also deter them by sealing off gaps and cracks that allow them inside, stacking firewood away from walls, and pulling mulch back from the foundation.
If large ants and sawdust piles have started appearing, Mosquito Squad of Fenton - Brighton can help. Mosquito Squad's home and yard coverage addresses carpenter ants and their nuisance cousins, helping protect the wood your house depends on.
