Ant & Carpenter Ant Treatment · Cambridge
Ant and Carpenter Ant Treatment in Cambridge
Cambridge has a lot of old wood and a lot of damp ground, which is why carpenter ants are the ant problem here. The ones on the counter are workers. The colony is somewhere wet, and finding it is the job.
Ants come in two categories in Cambridge. The small ones on the counter every spring, which are a nuisance. And the big black ones with sawdust under the trim, which are carpenter ants and which mean something in the house has been wet for a long time. The mistake people make with both is the same: spraying what they can see. A repellent spray kills a few dozen workers and splits the colony into two, and the ants find a new way in. The treatment that works reaches the colony.
Carpenter ants: why Cambridge gets them
Carpenter ants nest in wood that has stayed wet. Cambridge has more of that than most cities its size. Hespeler's mill-era frame houses around Queen Street and Guelph Avenue have wood sills on stone, wood porches, wood windows and back additions that have settled and let water in. Galt's century homes have wood porches and cornices on limestone and brick, and the riverside ground under them stays damp. Preston's post-war bungalows have forty-year-old decks with ledger boards against the house and original wood window frames on the north side. And the ravine and riverside lots along the Grand, the Speed, Mill Creek and Moffat Creek have stumps, woodpiles and fence posts in wet ground where the parent colony lives before it sends a satellite colony into the house.
Carpenter ants do not eat wood. They excavate it to make galleries, and they push the fine sawdust — frass, often with insect parts in it — out through a gap. Piles of that below a window frame, a porch post or a gap in the baseboard are the sign. So are large black or black-and-red ants indoors in winter, which means the colony is inside the house, and winged ants swarming at a window in spring.
Finding the nest
The inspection is most of the job. The technician follows the trails, taps the trim and listens for the hollow sound and the rustle of a disturbed colony, checks the usual wet spots — under windows, behind a downspout, the deck ledger, the porch roof, around a bathroom fan that vents into the soffit, the rim joist behind a leaking hose bib — and looks outside for the parent colony in a stump, a woodpile, a rotting fence post or a landscape tie. Often there is a satellite nest inside and the parent colony outside, and both have to be treated or the house gets recolonised.
Treating it
The treatment is a non-repellent application at the nest and along the trails — a product the ants walk through without noticing and carry back — plus bait where it suits, and dust into the wall void or the gallery where the nest is inside a wall. Repellent sprays are avoided because they make the ants scatter and split. A follow-up visit confirms the colony is dead and treats any activity that remains. Products are registered for the use, applied at the label rate by a technician holding the applicable Ontario exterminator licence; the Ontario government's pesticides page covers the rules.
Then the wet wood has to be fixed
This is the part nobody likes to hear. The carpenter ants picked the sill because the downspout has been dumping beside it for years, or the porch post because the roof above it leaks, or the window frame because the caulking failed a decade ago. Killing the colony solves this year's problem. If the wood stays wet, the next colony moves in. The moisture repair — the downspout extension, the flashing, the rotted sill or post — is carpentry, not pest control, and you are told plainly what needs doing and roughly how urgent it is. On a Hespeler frame house that can be a real repair; on a Preston bungalow it is often a deck ledger and a downspout.
Pavement ants and the ants on the counter
The small dark ants trailing across the counter in spring and summer in most Cambridge houses are pavement ants. They nest under driveways, walkway slabs, patios and the garage slab, and they come in under the door or through a foundation crack looking for sugar and grease. The treatment is a bait they carry back to the colony, placed along the trail, plus an exterior treatment along the foundation and at the slab edges where they nest. Spraying the trail kills a few dozen and leaves the colony of thousands untouched.
Pharaoh ants and indoor ants in apartments
Tiny yellow ants in bathrooms and near warm appliances year-round, usually in an apartment building, are pharaoh ants, and they are a multi-unit problem. Spraying them splits the colony and makes it worse. Bait only, placed carefully, over several visits, with the adjoining units looked at. Odorous house ants and other occasional invaders are handled with the same bait-first approach.
Safety
Baits are placed in small amounts in cracks and stations where children and pets cannot reach them. You are told how long to keep children and pets out of treated areas and what not to clean for the first days, because scrubbing the baseboards the next morning removes the treatment.
Frequently asked questions
Are carpenter ants as bad as termites?
They are slower, and they need wet wood to start, where termites do not. But a carpenter ant colony left in a Hespeler sill or a Galt porch post for years does real structural damage. The treatment kills the colony; fixing the leak or the rotted wood that attracted them is carpentry and has to happen too. Termites are not treated by this service.
Why do the ants keep coming back after I spray them?
Because you are killing workers on the counter and leaving the colony under the slab or in the wall alone. Repellent sprays also make ants avoid the treated area and find a new route, and can split a colony into two. Baits the ants carry back, plus treatment at the nest itself, is what ends it.
I see big ants inside in February. What does that mean?
Carpenter ants active indoors in winter mean the colony is inside the house, in wood that is warm and wet, not outside in a stump. That is worth an inspection now rather than in May, because the nest has been there a while and the wet wood behind it needs finding.
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