carpenter ants

coolmom42 wrote:

Kayteg1 wrote:
I had huge ants infestation in one of my homes and the over the counter poisons were garbage.
The "2 years protection" poison would kill ant that were directly sprayed, but 20 minutes later new ants walk over it.
For good poison you need to have licence, or hire licences guy.
That said, I discovered the same thing homedad did.
Ants don't live in the house - they live in nests in the yard and come to the house for feeding.
Meaning if you park the motorhome elsewhere, they will be gone.
Can't officially recommend poison that work well on in-ground nest, but gasoline is way cheaper than the cheapest poison you can buy.

Some types of ants will establish nests indoors. There was a nest of odiferous ants on top of my dishwasher. (Yes, I finally got rid of them!) I use Amdro granules outside all the way around the foundation of the house, replacing them every 2 months. And at the FIRST sign of an ant inside, I get the ant bait out.

This is true. Ants will establish a colony in a house or RV as a satellite nest until a queen is present and then it becomes it's own colony. Eventually it can become a full nest. That's how they work. Some ants will search out new places to set up a satellite nest. If it's suitable a queen can settle in. They view your house or RV as a big hollow tree. I got a pretty good education on Carpenter ants from my local bug guy over the past few years. We do not have an ant problem but would if I didn't educate myself. My neighbor's house was crawling with Carpenter ants for the past 2 years. he ignored my advice to get professional help and only used store bought baits and that never really worked. Now you never see any. I asked my bug guy and he said it's because it's an established nest now and they no longer need to travel from outside in. He said he would hate to see the damage they are doing behind the walls. It's not always wet wood they are after either. Technically they don't really eat wood, but remove it to create the nests. They will eat pet food, meat, jelly etc. They prefer wetter wood as it's easier to tunnel through but I've seen them kill healthy trees on my property. Inside of 2 years they will completely hollow out a mature oak.