I am a single mom in a 30+year old log home in Massachusetts. I am noticing small piles of sawdust from several areas (inside and out), and have seen largish ants on the porch (carpenter ants?). I want to treat the problem immediately, but have several questions and concerns. In addition to kids, I raise honey bees and have free range chickens as well as pets, therefore I am concerned about toxicity. Also, I am wondering if this would be too big a job to tackle by myself and what I might exp
The piles of dust you are seeing are probably from Powder Post Beetles. The best way to stop them is to apply a borate solution to the logs. Unfortunately, this has to be done on bare wood, so you would have to strip the house down. As for the carpenter ants, this means you have some wet, rotting logs or wood somewhere. If you can get this replaced it will stopthe ant activity. Bad part is most of this is expensive. Try contacting a local pest controller to see if they have any environmental friendly ways of stopping this.