I was up in Point Roberts, WA. Interesting place, trees all around and many vacation homes. Because of the wooded landscape, it is common to find carpenter ants. Carpenter ants often have nests in nearby trees or old stumps or even old wood below grade so if a person lives near a forest, it is best to be vigilant and watch out for this pest. If you see an occasional ant, that is one thing, but when you start seeing several of them walking one after the other, like a parade, across the deck and under the siding or if they are seen inside your house a lot, then it is time to start getting pretty suspicious that they are becoming too friendly. My experience is, if you see a carpenter ant inside the house, other once in a blue moon, then there is probably something going on. The other big mistake people make, as far as letting the ants take up residence, is they do not correctly identify carpenter ants. They think they have "sugar ants" or some such thing. A carpenter ant might be, but is not necessarily, black or big. They come in different sizes and the way to tell them, one from another, is more complicated than we need to go into here and it takes a good lighted magnifying glass too.

On with the story. At this house I had seen three live C modoc carpenter ants in the kitchen. Then, as I was checking the electric baseboard heaters, I found piles of carpenter ant bodies.

Dan Suomi, WSDA ant expert, says they were probably searching for heat in the winter cold. The house was vacant, but the heat was on.

Having seen the live ants in the house, and probably 25 bodies, I knew they were almost certainly going to be hanging out in the crawl space -- their favorite place other than when they are hunting sweets in the kitchen. When I got down under the house, I found conducive conditions -- standing water, a poorly applied plastic vapor barrier, a plumbing leak and an infestation of moisture ants -- a different species of ant but a wood destroying organism that also likes wet environs. There was insulation up under the floor, but I thought that I would be a good structural pest inspector and peak under the insulation. I carefully pulled a piece back and viola -- there were dead carpenter ants, and chunks thereof, and the fibers were covered with a dusting of distinctive, fine carpenter ant frass. As I stared up there, another couple live ants went scurrying off. You can get a look at the insulation below.

This light dusting of fine wood shavings, known as frass, includes a few assorted bug and ant parts, another sign of carpenter ant activity.

The probable solution, if you wonder: Remove all insulation, get a licensed contractor under there (one who understands wood destroying organisms and their damage) to make all essential repairs. Then have a licensed pest control operator go under and treat the home with an approved chemical, probably sodium borate. Then, when the pest problem is for sure gone, might be a few months down the road, put up some new insulation.

Thanks for dropping in.

Steven L. Smith

Bellingham WA home inspector