The most common areas in the home which are susceptible to invasion are under or behind sinks, toilets, dishwashers, windows that leak, sliders to porches and decks. Once inside the home, ants can quickly travel along water pipes and create satellite colonies in walls and upper levels going undetected until the nest reaches maturity. Regularly seeing carpenter ants in your home is a good indication that there is a nest somewhere in the wood structure. Seeing winged swarmers is a definite sign of a nest because they do not forage for food but leave a mature nest to mate and start a new colony. Annual inspections and preventative treatments can detect and destroy these nests before they reach maturity and prevent infestations from spreading throughout the home.
Appendages are usually lighter than the rest of the body.
The size of the ants within a colony will be very consistent averaging one-tenth of an inch, although the winged reproductives can be much larger. Pavement ants prefer sandy soil and usually live underground, but nests can also be found indoors in walls and under floors. Colonies commonly number around 500,000 and can be a tremendous nuisance, invading buildings throughout the year, foraging for food. All it takes is for one ant to find a piece of food, and in a short amount of time, the area will be covered by these ants. They accomplish this by laying down a pheromone trail from the food source to the colony.