The sight of a single ant around your house doesn’t seem like a big deal. But what if it’s a carpenter ant?
What does that mean? Maybe nothing, but it could be so much worse than you expect.
So should you be worried if you see one carpenter ant?
- A carpenter ant is a reddish or black ant that feeds off crumbs in your house.
- They often mobilize in larger numbers. When you see one, there usually is more.
- This single ant is most likely a scout who may signal to the nest that it’s time to move to your house.
In this article, we’ll take a look at how to identify carpenter ants and why you should be worried about them.
Should You Be Worried if You See One Carpenter Ant?
Just one single ant seems like a minute problem. They’re tiny! But unfortunately, this is a bad sign when dealing with carpenter ants.
This is the life mission that sometimes brings them into your home. To assess if the area they’re looking to move into is a good option, carpenter ants send out scouts.
That means that the first sign of them being in your home is not going to be a large swath of them piling into your home… but rather that one singular and you just saw.
Once the carpenter and scout find a good food source, they then call back to their friends, and everybody joins in.
If you see one single ant that looks like a carpenter ant, you should address it immediately. That way, you don’t have to worry about any other problems that come with carpenter ants setting up shop in your home.
Carpenter ants are black or reddish ants that look to find places where they can pick up food easily.
Just one single ant seems like a minute problem. They’re tiny! But unfortunately, this is a bad sign when dealing with carpenter ants.
How to Identify Carpenter Ants: Signs You Have a Problem
To ensure that you can address the signs as they appear and before anything major happens, you need to know that there are a couple of key ways to identify carpenter ants.
Below will go over the four main ones ways to identify these pests in order of urgency:
1. Identifying
The very first step is identifying that you have carpenter ants. These ants, as we said above, are reddish or black.
When you look at their bodies, they have a single node between the thorax and abdomen. Typically carpenter ants grow to be about 5/8″.
Once you’ve identified them, you may want to begin finding ways to combat the eventual invasion that comes with a single scout.
The very first step is identifying that you have carpenter ants. These ants are reddish or black.
2. Nests
The next sign you’ll be looking for is the appearance of sawdust. The sawdust is not necessarily because they are eating your home as termites do. Rather, they chew it up and push it out to create holes for them to maneuver through.
But… they could be eating your home the way termites do, too. Here’s what they can do to lumber.
3. Flying Ants
Another sure sign that you are dealing with a carpenter ant problem is the appearance of flying ants in your home or around your windows.
The appearance of these ants means that mature carpenter ants have nested in your home or around your property.
4. Damage
Maybe the most impactful and potentially financially devastating sign is when they get to the point where they are causing damage to your home. This can be something as simple as stuck doors or sinking ceilings.
But as shown above, these ants can really cause some havoc if left unchecked.
Don’t ignore them.
Conclusion
So as you can see, one simple carpenter ant means that you may be in danger of a whole slew of other problems, like finding a new house. That means if one appears, you need to act quickly.
You could try to take care of it yourself, but if you continue to see more, it’s time to call in the professionals before your bath tub is in your living room.
