are you that good on ID??? ... are you sure they are carpenter ants???? the only thing ants trigger in my mind.. when i see too many on any given plant.. of any type is.. aphids.. they farm the aphids.. and milk them of honeydew .. as disgusting as thought is.. lol ... otherwise they are being advantageous regarding other pre-existing problems.. in other words.. they did not cause the dead wood ... they are harvesting it.. if in fact that is what they are doing ... otherwise.. i ignore them ... though it is rather exhilarating.. to have a bunch climbing thru the hairs on your body.. whether feet or hands.. lol ... ken

I did quite a bit of research on this subject recently, as I get a conga line of ants to my kitchen and bathroom sinks for a few weeks every April. It is worth trying to find out what kind of ants you've got, because if theyr'e carpenter ants, you then need to figure out whether they are nesting in the house, or coming in from an outside nest foraging or looking for water. If there is an internal nest, you want to try to track them back to it, as you'll want to fix any water damage. (Unlike termites, carpenter ants build only in rotting wood.) The most useful site I saw on dealing (or NOT dealing) with carpenter ants was http://unexco.com/carpants.html They advise you to not panic -- carpenter ants do not suddenly eat your whole house, and a lot of people will try to scare you into buying a monthly pest control plan. (Some, apparently, even mistake other ants for carpenter ants...) In addition to repellents and baits, there are evidently other treatments, originally developed for use on termites, that are used on some ants. (I know they are used for carpenter ants, not sure about other species.) Evidently a lot of pros (I gather from chatter on a pest control site) swear by a combination of products called Phantom and Termidor, which need to be applied by licensed professionals. These are sprays that leave a residue that the ants walk through and take back to the nest, as they do with baits. They can't detect these poisons, though, and they are (like baits) slow-acting, so it is designed to wipe out the entire colony. Nota bene: I haven't used them, I'm not a pest control professional, I'm not recommending them, I'm just saying there is another method out there that is worth checking up on. Another good resource for researching pest control issues is a message board of the Integrated Pest Control Network, http://www.ipconetwork.org/fmb/cboard.mv Good luck with your ants.

It does take some time for the Ants to be gone. In the mean time, AND TO keep the tenant happy. Suggest to her to get some corn meal, if she could put some in a coffee grinder to make it as fine as possible. You could offer to send her one that she can keep, people love free stuff! Place the fine corn meal in the area's where there are ants and also out side near/on the nests.The ant will take the corn meal back to the nest, feed themselves and the queen. Once injested, it expands with water and they explode/ die. So I'm told, but it did work for me here in Mass like a charm. It did take a few dustings of corn meal, but there gone. Ask the exterminator what their food source is? so you can remove it. Share the info with your tenant. As a land lord myself I always tell tenants what is attracting the bugs, via an e-mail. It's then up to them to take note and clean up the area. Should they ever complain to a town health dept, I have proof I did my part. Good Luck

I use a bait type product which has worked well. You do have to be sure of the species cause they don't all take the same bait. I was able to ID my fire ants the moment one bit me. There are also barrier type products that work well but you have to know where they're coming in. Should be pretty easy for a mobile home. Thousands back in the nest, a few in your house. Spraying them is kind of a waste of time. They're back in the nest growing more. Getting rid of water sources and food of course helps a lot. A few ants means they're just looking around. A lot of ants means they found something they like. The definition of "pet safe" and even "people safe" doesn't always mean 100%. It's normally more like won't kill you in an hour. If you look up the MSDS for the product (all products like this are required to have a MSDS) you can find out exactly what's in the product and from there research test data. It's normally pretty scary though.