Got Ants? Call Yankee Pest Control to have a member of our professional pest management service team conduct an inspection and treatment of your property.  We will evaluate the situation and make sound recommendations as to what should be done to eliminate the ants and correct any conditions conducive to ants.

All about the ants in your home

For as long as people have enjoyed picnics, ants have enjoyed raiding them. As irritating as they are, you have to give ants their due. 

Having been on earth for about 120 million years, ants certainly have lasting power. They’re successful because they are social insects often forming complex colonies. They’re also adaptable and exploit numerous different living environments and food sources. 

Today, scientists estimate there are about 20,000 different species of ant taking advantage of every conceivable environmental niche and living in almost every region throughout the globe. Interestingly, ants aerate more soil than earthworms. The presence of ants in nature ensures the health of the natural environment. 

Of course, the same reasons ants are successful in nature make them well suited to sharing humanity’s living quarters…but in homes and other buildings, ants are not so welcome. Ants hide in chimneys, attics, garagesany place people don’t use on an everyday basis.

The most common structure-infesting ants in the northeastern United States are carpenter ants, pavement ants, pharaoh ants, and little black ants. Structures can be threatened by damage from carpenter ants. Pharaoh ants can carry disease.

A special word about carpenter ants

Carpenter ants can do significant damage to wood be it trees, buildings, or other wood timbers. 

Signs of carpenter ants include: 

• seeing the ants 
• damaged wood
• wood frass 
• ants carrying tiny hammers and saws (pest control humor) 

The frass is fine wood chips that the ants have excavated from the timber they are nesting in. Ant body parts are usually mixed in. In most cases, the damage in the wood will “go with the grain”, and it will seem as if the ants sanded the wood smooth. 

Carpenter ants need damp and moist wood, so it’s important to first look for water or moisture damage in any structure. When it comes to wood-destroying insects in the northeastern United States the three most important things to remember are: moisture, moisture, and moisture. If you can control for it, you can usually prevent wood-destroying insects, especially carpenter ants, from establishing a new nest.

Targeted ant control treatment

Because the biology and habits of each species are unique, knowing the species of the ant involved provides clues to where to look for the ant colonies and which treatment procedure to use. 

The application of pesticides in and around your home or building without first fully understanding the problems and other service procedures available may result in the unnecessary use of pesticides and in some cases, may cause an ant problem to worsen. An example of harm caused by not being fully aware of ant biology and currently available procedures happens if one were to spray a liquid pesticide inside a structure to solve a pharaoh ant problem. In such cases, this commonly causes the pharaoh ant to “bud out”. Budding out occurs when an ant colony perceives a threat and restructures itself to avoid the pesticide by creating several new nest sites.

Successful ant control

In order to successfully control ants in and around structures, Yankee Pest Control:

• Identifies the ant or ants involved.
• Performs a thorough inspection.
• Locates conducive conditions.
• Determines where the ant colonies are located. 
• Formulates a corrective action plan.

Today, YPC uses technology that allows our pest management professionals to employ several different methods to control your ant problem. Our service professionals have a full working knowledge of building construction practices, ant biology, and current control practices. Only after conducting an inspection and identifying the type of ant involved, their feeding habits, conductive conditions, and colony locations will our service professionals make treatment recommendations.

We may suggest any one of or any combination of these control procedures: 

• baiting 
• direct colony treatment 
• structural modifications 
• perimeter treatment 
• dust or aerosol treatments to construction voids 
• applications to the base of trees 
• removal of vegetation 
• spot treatments 

Call Yankee Pest Control at (781) 397-9923 to have a member of our professional pest management service team conduct an inspection and treatment of your property.