Protect Your Lawn from Carpenter Ants

1) Trim trees and bushes so branches don’t touch your house.
2) Fix areas in your home with bad moisture problems such as leaky roofs and bad plumbing.
3) Paint and/or seal exposed wood construction before it becomes wet.
4) Replace rotted, water-damaged, and previously Ant-infested wooden parts of the structure.
5) Eliminate wood/soil contacts.
6) Remove dead stumps on the property and store firewood off the ground and away from the structure.

Carpenter ants are one of the largest and most common ants in Michigan. Unlike termites, they only nest in wood and do not eat it. Outdoors, they commonly nest in hollow trees and stumps. Finding them indoors during the summer does not necessarily mean they are nesting in your house, they may just be coming in from outside. The best method of controlling an indoor colony of carpenter ants is to locate the nest and treat it directly with a persistent insecticide registered for indoor use.