The Do's And Don'ts Of Ant Control: An Extensive Guide For Kittitas County Homeowners

In many action films, there is a scene where the "good guys" are waiting for the "bad guys" to make the next move. The filmmaker puts you, the audience member, in the middle of the action by allowing you to see what the "good guys" are witnessing through their binoculars as they scan the horizon for the enemy. Soon, you notice a thin, black line emerging across the horizon. Initially, you cannot distinguish what is coming your way, but as you watch, the little line turns into a massive horde of "bad guys" coming to attack.

The analogy can apply to ants. One day, you see only one ant in the house, remove it and go on with your day. But soon, what initially didn't appear to be a problem becomes an issue when you walk into the kitchen and see a line of ants marching to the trash can. You know it is impossible to get rid of ants in the yard surrounding your home, but how do you keep them from invading your house?

The best way to keep ants out of your house is to secure pest control services in Kittitas County from Prosite. We are members of the National Pest Management Association (NPMA) and the Better Business Bureau and are a QualityPro Certified company. A QualityPro certification means we meet and exceed 16 local, state, and federal regulations and requirements; our employees are background-checked, drug-free, and certified in pest control and customer service. When you contact us to resolve the ant problem in your Kittitas County home, you are partnering with the best pest control company in the area.

You found this article because ants may crawl on you while you sleep, are in pet food bowls, walk across countertops, etc., and you want them out of your house. Please keep reading to learn what to do when ants invade your home.

Do Know The Warning Signs Of An Ant Problem

Is a random ant in the house a warning sign? Maybe. Are there signs that an ant accidentally wandering in is not a fluke but indicates a much larger problem? Yes. To determine if you are experiencing an invasion of ants, look for the following:

• Ants
• Swarmers
• Sawdust
• Pinholes
• Sounds
• Odor

Keep reading to understand each of these ant infestation signs.

Although most people would argue they know an ant when they see one, it is best to start with a description so we don't confuse them with other pests. Ants are insects with six jointed legs, clubbed segmented antennae, and a three-part body (head, thorax, and abdomen). Some ants have stingers and wings, but none spin webs. Ants have an external skeleton that they shed (molt) to progress through growth stages (instars) after they hatch from their eggs.

Ants are social creatures who live in nests with a queen ant and reproductive ants. Ants crawling along baseboards, around garbage cans, or in pet food are female sterile worker ants whose job is to forage for food, physically expand the nest, and care for offspring produced by the queen. Depending upon the species, ants are 1/16 to 5/8 inch long and have brown, black, red, grey, or yellowish bodies.

Swarmers are another type of ant you may witness in the home that indicates an infestation. In many species, when a colony matures, the queen ant produces a group of winged male and female reproductive ants. These ants leave the nest in the spring and coast on the warm air currents to find new nesting locations. Swarming ants, or alates, have four wings; the forewings are longer than the hind wings and are tinted brown. Swarmers cluster around outdoor lights and light sources in the early dawn or dust hours. If you see flying ants around your house, you probably have ants invading your home.

Most ants create homes in the soil, but carpenter ants bore smooth holes into damp wood for nesting purposes. Unlike termites, carpenter ants do not consume wood; instead, they shave off wood slivers, push them to the nest opening, and create sawdust-like piles. When you see these piles near baseboards, door jambs, window sills, and outside pinholes in the wood, you probably have carpenter ants in your home.

A typical carpenter ant colony has about 3,000 members, but some can have tens of thousands of these creatures constantly chewing away at the wood in your home's timber. With that many ants moving about in the walls, you can sometimes hear them at night when the house is quite rustling in the walls.

Ants communicate using chemicals known as pheromones. They deposit these liquids as they move from food and water sources to their nest to direct incoming ants to those areas. As more and more ants travel the paths to these sources, they release pheromones to strengthen the signal. Over time, a musty odor will become noticeable in the room.

When you see these signs, you need the ant control service near your home from Prosite. Our trained technicians know all the indications of an infestation and will develop a plan to end their reign in your home.