3 Different Ant Species That May Invade Your Oakville Home This Summer
When warm weather arrives in Oakville, many species of insects emerge to find new nesting sites, and few colonize with more efficiency and in greater numbers than ants. Once they choose a nesting site near your home, they may find their way inside to forage for food. Here at Truly Nolen, we offer carpenter ant treatment in Oakville, along with some information about a few different species of ants that may invade your home this summer.
1. Carpenter Ants
You can identify carpenter ants inside your home by their size. Most workers can grow up to .05 mm long, and queens can reach 20 mm; however, you will likely never see her because she resides deep underground at the heart of the colony. Once the queen establishes a community, her workers leave the nest and forage for food. They enjoy a variety of foods, including:
- Sweet foods
- Meat/animal fat
- House plants
- Dead insects
Like most ants, scouts leave a scent trail to a food source, which they then carry back to the nest. They make their tunnels and trails throughout the wooden surfaces in your home, including baseboards, wooden window frames and decorative mulch. You may find small piles of wood shavings in areas where they bore into the wood.
You may wonder how to get rid of carpenter ants so they do not come back, and our pest removal technicians can help with a variety of services to keep your home safe all summer long, such as treating the perimeter of your yard and sealing gaps and cracks.
2. Pavement Ants
This invasive species is smaller than the carpenter ant and, as the name suggests, make nests in and between pavement cracks. Adults usually measure 3 mm in size and will enter your home through small cracks or gaps at your doors’ thresholds. Once inside, they seek out sweet, syrupy or greasy foods, much like carpenter ants. This is an aggressive ant species and will sting to defend themselves, making them dangerous to you and your family.
Pavement ants are difficult to destroy with store-bought insecticides because sprays only kill the ants you see and not the ones deep inside the ground. Our pest technicians have the tools to not only eradicate visible ants but to seek out where the colony hides as well.
3. Pharoah Ants
While we can handle your carpenter ant treatment in Oakville, we also assist with other species invasions, such as Pharoah ants. These are smaller ants, about the size of their distant pavement ant cousins. This species hails from Africa but now lives in many different locations across the world. While these ants are not truly aggressive, they invade in huge numbers and carry diseases that could make you and your family ill if they infect food, such as pantry goods.
Our Truly Nolen pest technicians can trail ants back to their source and treat the area to destroy the entire colony. Pharoah ants often nest in warm, moist places, so our techs can treat these places and inspect other locations where these ants may make trails.
We Can Help With Carpenter Ant Treatment in Oakville
As an Oakville homeowner, you may wonder, “Is there carpenter ant control near me that can also help me prevent an ant invasion?” Our techs can provide you with tips for keeping your home ant-free, such as cutting back tree branches and large bushes, sealing food in air-tight containers and cleaning kitchen counters each night to ensure you do not attract ants with cooking or food odours.
Contact Us Today
We can identify and target the types of ants that might encroach on your Oakville home and provide you with long-term solutions for keeping them away. Contact us today and schedule an inspection that safeguards your property.