PSA: That "free" firewood from the curb gave me carpenter ants in my whole shed

Last spring I saw a neighbor two blocks down had a huge pile of cut wood at the curb with a "free" sign. I loaded up my truck with what I thought was a score for my backyard fire pit. Stacked it right against my garden shed and forgot about it. Three months later I pulled a piece out and saw little trails of ants crawling all over. Turns out that wood had been sitting for months and was full of moisture and bugs. I ended up having to tear down half the shed to spray and treat the infestation. Cost me about $400 in materials and a whole weekend of work. Anyone else get burned by grabbing curb wood or found a better way to dry out and check logs before bringing them home?

2 comments

2 Comments

lisa_bennett18d ago

You mentioned "three months later" and I get that's frustrating but honestly I think you brought that on yourself. Free curb wood is almost always going to be wet or buggy if you just stack it against a shed and forget about it for months. I've grabbed plenty of curb wood over the years but I always split a couple logs open right there on the spot to check for bugs and rot before I even load it up. Then I store it off the ground on pallets in full sun with good air flow and never against any structures. If you're just gonna pile it up against your shed and ignore it then yeah you're gonna have problems. You basically gave those carpenter ants a perfect home right next to your shed.

laura_lane18d ago

Oh man, did you have to deal with those ant trails too? Because that image you described with the little trails crawling all over when you pulled a piece out, that gave me flashbacks to my own mistake a couple years back. I grabbed a pile of free oak from someone's driveway, thought I was being smart, stacked it right up against my garage wall. Three months later I go to grab a log and there's sawdust everywhere and a whole highway of those little carpenter ants going right into my garage siding. I ended up having to call an exterminator and it cost me like $300 just for them to come out and treat the area, plus I had to replace a rotted piece of siding. You're totally right that we bring it on ourselves by not checking first, but I swear I still see those "free firewood" signs and get tempted even after all that.