House Ant

House ants, also known as odorous ants, are one of the most common pests homeowners will encounter. It is rare to see a lone ant because they live in colonies and travel together. They are a social insect and communicate through pheromones, signals that can convey the presence of danger or food. When one ant finds food, she (because all worker ants are sterile females) alerts the colony and soon hundreds of ants arrive to collect the bounty. This is the reason when crumbs are left on your floor, you soon have hundreds of ants and a big problem in your kitchen. Keeping ants out feels like an uphill battle, and it is when you do it alone. The only way to effectively keep ants is with professional ant control.

General Information

All ants have three main body parts, a head, thorax and abdomen. Their antennas are used to communicate with the rest of the colony. Ant colonies are extremely sophisticated and organized. A colony consists of a queen, female worker ants and males. The queen and the males have wings while the female workers are wingless. When you find ants in your home, they are the female workers, gathering food for the colony. The male ants, or drones, only live for a few weeks and their sole duty is to mate with the queen. Female worker ants, on the other hand, can live anywhere from 1-3 years and a queen can live up to 30 years. The life of an ant colony can literally live hundreds of years as a new queen will take over once the old queen dies. So if you have an ant problem, chances are, it’s not going away on its own. You need the help of pest control experts to ensure these ants don’t move in for good.

The Signs of an Infestation

The signs of an ant infestation are usually pretty obvious—a ton of ants milling around your kitchen, bathrooms, laundry room, garage or anywhere else they can find food and water. Their primary goal is the keep the colony health and fed so with their highly developed sense of smell, they go in search of food and water to do so. Due to their small size, they can squeeze into small cracks and crevices so it’s important to keep your home sealed tight so they cannot get inside. They can travel within your walls, floorboards, ceilings and completely infiltrate every square inch of your home.

Treatment

When it comes to ant control, there are hundreds of products on the market that can help you remove ants. The problem with these products are that many of them do not work effectively because they are not used properly. You need to understand the behavior patterns of ants and the technicians at Pointe Pest Control know how ants react to specific types of ant control. Sometimes, homeowners place baits down and once the ants see some of their buddies falling victim to these poisons, they send out alerts. That danger pheromone sends the ants into hyper-awareness that something is threatening the hive. If they feel the hive is in grave danger, they may even relocate it. This makes your infestation infinitely worse because by scattering the hive, it can subsequently break off into multiple hives where they create a new queen and soon you have an even worse ant infestation. Ant control needs to be carefully done and the professionals at Pointe Pest Control can help you remove the ant infestation right the first time.