hi i'm often asked how do i kill carpenter ants i'll help you with that problem i'm michael piacenza with advantage pest control well carpenter ants come in all different sizes and shapes but basically they're all in the same category and everybody thinks they eat wood well that's a big misconception they live in wood they burrow into the wood and create their home they're actually protein eaters so how do you kill them well you're going to need a protein-based bait if you're going to try a bait now i've found that they're they're really adverse to baits you know you might get one type that'll take the bait but more often than not that doesn't wipe out the colony so what i do is i use a couple of different sprays and dusts okay if you can find a trail of them that's perfect if you've got a trail and you can dust that trail and they're traipsing through the trail ants are constantly cleaning themselves if they get that dust on their antennas which is like another set of eyes they're going to be constantly cleaning that and they get that dust in their system now there's some safe dusts you can use botanically based you can use minerally based like boric acid and all of those work really really well in fact a lot of the baits have boric acid in them the other thing i use is a synthetic outside of the house any termiticide actually will work really good on ants so just make sure that you read the label and you follow all the safety practices carpenter ants one of the best ways to take care of them is to spray up underneath the eaves they have a tendency of coming up getting in through the attic and back down and then any places where they can get in you want to seal those up so a multi-pronged approach will usually get it now they do swarm now you sometimes you'll find uh windows or excuse me wings in your windows and uh you got to take a look at those if there's little dead bodies if they have a little pinch then it's a carpenter ant if they have a long smooth body that's a termite and a much bigger problem so you're gonna need a professional for that i hope this has been helpful i'm michael piacenza good day