Ant Control Maintenance: Keeping Your Kittitas County Home Ant-Free Long-Term

Renovating an older home can be challenging because you have to put time and money into it to reflect the vision you have for it. It is satisfying when you move into your dream home after long nights of sanding, painting, and repairs. Although you can finally enjoy the house, you know ongoing maintenance is required to maintain your renovated home.

Everything worthwhile in life requires maintenance, and one thing worth maintaining is ant control. It is unnerving when ants invade your home. You want to avoid eating the apples from the bowl on the countertop after watching ants crawl over them. You feel itchy after you notice an ant crawling across your arm.

When ants infest your home, you want them out, and the first step in the ant removal process is to secure pest control in Kittitas County from Prosite. When you partner with us, you can have confidence that we will resolve your ant problem. We will stop the current infestation and work with you to maintain an ant-free home. 

You probably found this article because you found ants inside your home and need help. Please keep reading because we share information you need to stop the current ant problem for keeping them away for good.

The Life Cycle Of Ants: How Ant Colonies Develop

When you see a line of ants in Kittitas County marching along your baseboards or crawling up the walls inside the kitchen, you may have wondered how they got into your home. Ant colonies begin through swarming or budding. We know those terms may be foreign to you, so let us explain them. We will start by explaining the most common way ant colonies begin; swarming.

Most ant colonies have a queen whose sole job is to produce offspring. The queen's life began in another nest as a winged, reproductive ant. Most ants in a colony are sterile worker ants whose task is to expand the nest by digging tunnels and chambers and supplying the group with food. Once the ant colony matures, the queen produces a group of winged male and female ants with reproductive capabilities.

When the warm air currents of spring arrive, the flying ants leave the nest, coast on the air currents, and mate. After mating, the males fall to the ground a die, but the females continue until they find a suitable nesting location. If it survives the weather and predators, the fertilized female lands, discards her wings, and produces her first set of eggs, which are sterile workers. Once the workers mature, they expand the nest and supply the queen with food as she delivers more workers, and the cycle continues.

The other way ant colonies develop is through budding. Ant species that use this method have multiple queens in a nest. The main queen initially produces sterile workers but later produces males and females with reproductive capability; however, the reproducible ants do not have wings. The males (drones) fertilize the females in the colony. When the ants detect a threat, the fertilized females leave the nest with an entourage of sterile worker ants to start a nearby satellite colony. 

Here is a list of the types of ants that invade the houses in our area and how they create nests:

• Argentine ants: Budding
• Carpenter ants: Swarming
• Crazy ants: Swarming
• Odorous house ants: Swarming
• Pavement ants: Swarming
• Pharaoh ants: Budding
• Thief ants: Swarming

Here is a brief description of each ant species so you can identify what is in your Kittitas home.

Argentine ants have a 1/16 to 1/4-inch dark brown to black black body. These ants travel in trails up trees and into houses and establish nests in damp areas with about 15 queens for every 1,000 ants. When Argentine ants feel threatened, the fertilized queens quickly disperse and begin new nests nearby. 

As the name suggests, carpenter ants are wood-dwelling ants. These insects have 1/2 to 5/8-inch red, black, brown, or red and black bodies. They are larger than most ants and create new colonies through swarming. 

Crazy ants are distinguishable by erratic, jerky way walking patterns, long legs, and antennae. They have a 1/16 to 1/8-inch dark brown to black body with a gray sheen. Crazy ants enjoy living in appliances. 

The odorous house ant is the most common invader of homes. These six-legged insects have a brown or black 1/16 to 1/8-inch body. 

If you see 1/8-inch dark brown or black ants in a driveway or sidewalk crack, underneath stones, or crawling up masonry walls, you are likely looking at pavement ants.

Another budding ant is the 1/16-inch pale yellow pharaoh ant. These ants are more problematic for medical facilities but occasionally infest homes where they live behind baseboards, wall voids, and in furniture.

Another yellowish insect of similar size to pharaoh ants is the thief ant. Sometimes called "grease" or "sugar" ants, these ants swarm to create nests near other ants and steal larvae, food, and pupae from nearby nests.

Prosite provides pest control ant treatments for whatever ant species infests your Kittitas home. Our highly-trained technicians will identify the ants in your house and develop a strategic plan to eliminate the current and future ant populations. 

Ant Dangers: Understanding The Risks Of An Infestation

You've probably noticed that ants will travel over anything. They do not care if they are walking over trash, animal feces, or inside garbage compactors full of rotting food. As they move through bacteria-filled areas, disease-causing organisms stick to the claws on their feet, where they are later transferred to items and contaminate them.

Ants contaminate surfaces and foods, and while they are a nuisance to have in the house, some, like the odorous house ant, are more bothersome than others. The odorous house ant is so-called because it emits a rotten-coconut odor when crushed.

In addition to being a nuisance and tainting objects, some ants, like the pharaoh ant, poses a significant health threat to homeowners. Salmonellosis, staphylococcus, clostridium, and streptococcus are diseases spread by pharaoh ants.

Ants not only affect the mental and physical well-being of those in a home, but carpenter ants affect the physical structure. Most ants create nests outside in the soil; when they invade houses, they build their homes in wall voids, masonry, or wood cracks, but carpenter ants invade wood. Unlike termites, carpenter ants do not consume wood but bore tunnels deep into damp wood like termites. Years of carpenter ants creating cavities inside structural supports can cause sagging floors and warping window and door frames.

Crazy ants create large nests in appliances where they chew on wires and expose them to each other and moisture. As a result, crazy ants cause short circuits and the electronics to fail, which results in expensive repair bills.

It is not worth risking the mental and physical health of those inside the house by allowing an infestation to thrive. It is better to be proactive and protect the structure of your home than risk future repairs. Prosite provides professional ant control in Kittitas County for homeowners so you can maintain a peaceful environment free from pests in your Kittitas home.