If you run across some really large black ants with bent antennas, carpenter ants, the borax baits don’t work very well as they don’t go for sweets very often. They are meat and grease eaters that are in the walls of your home.
About the best to get them is to have a company come in and do a drill and treat. This is where they will drill a small hole into the walls every 13 inches and shoot a wet able powder into the wall. It hits as a liquid and dries to a powder which the worker ants consume and carry back to the nest where they vomit up a lot of what they ate and give it to the adult ants. This kills them and the newborns don’t have any adults to help them.
Best I’ve seen is dursban. But many states make this a controlled chemical that you have to have an applicators license to purchase and treat. The advantage to a wetable powder is that it won’t wash away with rain as it is inside your walls. And there it is not dangerous to pets or children like an outdoor or indoor spray that will have to be resprayed after rain or about once a month.
And carpenter ants are smart. They will go across telephone lines or up bushes and trellises to get to openings. So keep plants a few inches off the walls to help slow their entry. The do not eat wood, but they mine in it to establish nest and egging areas and will do a lot of damage in time to your foundation support. Money!
rwood
[[have a company come in and do a drill and treat. This is where they will drill a small hole into the walls every 13 inches and shoot a wet able powder into the wall.]]
No! Your house won’t hold water then
Hardly see carpenter ants since the early 70’s. Plenty of fire ants though! Freeze line latitude thing I suppose.