Most effective Carpenter ant spray...

[Jmagerl]

It is said that there are two kinds of houses....Those that have carpenter ants and those that will have carpenter ants.....

I find that sprays don't work with carpenter ants becasue you never get the nest. Baits work much better but take a longer time to work. HD sells Combat gel which is what I prefer. You need to do some sleuthing and identify the ant trails and put the bait along them. If you're good you can follow the trails back to the nest and then maybe use a spray on the nest but you usually still don't get the queen. Baits will get the queen.

Once you get them out of your house than use a spray to spray a 3ft perimeter around the outside of your house. This will keep them out. I prefer diazinon as a spray but since you can't buy it anymore, I prefer anything that doesn't use permithin or its relatives. THey are just too short lived and you end up spraying once a month. IF you can find where they are entering the house than just spray a 10 ft by 3 ft strip in front of that point. My ants seem to be creatures of habit and year after year they enter thru the same point. Makes it kind of easy.

I prefer to not use insecticides inside the house but if you were forced to, I would use permithin because of its relatively low toxicity and short life span.

[blueman]

We seem (like many in our neighborhood) to have a nagging number of Carpenter ants around our New England house.

We bought Home Depot's "best" which supposedly "kills on contact", however, the ants seemed to just swim through the stuff.

What are your recommendations for the most effective *consumer* spray that effectively can be used against Carpenter ants? (both inside and outside).

My perhaps faulty assumption is that anything sold nowadays to consumers will be reasonably safe.

[Todd H.]

The trouble with this, and the lawn care industry it seems is that they don't seem to let us consumers buy the crap that actually works best.

Maybe I'm a leming, but after trying some consumer baits and such to no avail, I called Terminix when I had a black ant problem, and I haven't seen those arthopod sons-a-bitches since. The first year is somewhat pricey, but you can negotiate witht he local provider after that and get a substantial discount.

I'm not trying to steer you that way, but I wanted to share my disappointment with a variety of consumer level stuff in trying to deal with my own ant problem. Doesn't cost much to try that stuff though, so have at it!

Best Regards,

-- Todd H.

[SMF]

[Norminn]

Around or in? If there is damp or dead wood "around", there will be caprenter ants. A hollow tree, dying limbs, dead wood in hedges, damaged wood fence or siding. We had loads of carpenter ants around our condo, with folks dumping bags of poison all over,to no avail. What got rid of them was getting rid of dead wood in landscape and repairing damaged wood on structure. They forage in the evening, so are pretty easy to track to their nest. Put bait where it won't get washed away by rain if they persist after repair and caulking. One favorite means of entry is from trees in contact with roof; others - gaps in siding or around plumbing entry. Only rarely were they seen indoors - one kitchen of the condo, attic with leaky roof.

[Stormin Mormon]

Not spray, but I've had great results with "liquid ant bait" avail from

It's blue stuff, you leave it in small pools (I like bottle caps with a squirt). Put in ant trails. Let 'em drink it up. They don't come back. Really splended job, it does.

[gfretwell]

Until you find the nest and kill the queen you will still have ants. Anything else is simply pissing on the fire. Baits usually only change their feeding habits (ants usually have separate food streams) and killing the workers only prompts the colony to breed more workers.

[Norminn]

Trouble is, if a little is good, more must be better. People are stupid about insecticides. Call an exterminator instead of cleaning up the stuff that attracts bugs.

I used bait and cleaned my kitchen. Worked. Only ant infestations I've ever had were in spring (north and in FL) and had foodstuffs attracting them - crumbs around dog food dish, sweet spills on counter, etc. In extreme weather, they may come indoors seeking water or escaping excessive rainfall.

I guess the gov't is trying to keep us not only from killing ourselves but mutating future generations. I forget the percentage of people who have insecticides in measurable amounts in their bodies, but it is far more than half.

My neighbor in the condo dumped at least four bags of Dursban around the yard to kill carpenter ants. Tried to crush them to death, I guess. What got rid of them, with no more poison, was to clear out and repair dead or damaged wood. They were very numerous before, none now. Also caulked big gaps in out walls around water pipes, etc.

If you were hunting deer, rabbits or lions, you would find out where they go to eat. Some folks use attractants - same works for bugs. Carpenter ants forage in the evening and are very easy to trace to their nest. Sorry to go on so long, but I really don't want the grandkids poisoned. Their world will be tough enough.