Bug Busters Send em' Packin

The Odorous House Ant has become the #1 pest complaint in homes Nationwide (according to PCT magazine and the National Pest Management Assoc). These ants are out of control and normal chemical applications cannot be used on them. The colony is made up of thousands, some times hundreds of thousands ants with multiple queens. If the wrong products are used (even some cleaning products) the ant colony will bud (split) and infest other portions of your home. This is done when one of the Queens takes a portion of the nest and workers and moves to a different part of your home where they proceed to rebuild the colony.  They are a ground-nesting ant and are found outside during the warm weather but then move indoors during the cold and rain season. This is why they are such a pain in the Puget Sound area. 

These ants will eat almost every type of food, from pet food to our food. The colony will send out scout ants to find a food source. These scouts will wander all around in no general direction looking for the smallest crumb of food. When they find the food they take a bite of it and go straight back to the colony laying down a scent (pheromone) trail for all of the other ants to follow. Once it returns to the nest, it communicates with the other workers and tells them to follow the scent trail back to the food source. That's when you will see hundreds of ants trailing to that food source, and all of them are continuing to reestablish the scent trail for all the other ants to follow.

The proper way of treating these ants is to find the nest and eliminate it. This is very difficult to do when they could be anywhere in your home. In most cases the nest will never be found. That is why an aggressive, thorough treatment with multiple applications to insure the colony is eliminated must be done. Most pest control companies will give you baits called TERRO, (you can buy at Wal-Mart) this bait will kill the ants if they eat it but it will not affect the colony. The colony goes into a stressed mode and they will start to produce more workers to make up for the loss of the others. The proper baits will be very slow acting and will affect the entire colony not just the ants that consume it. With the correct baits and the treatment of the main insect harborage spots in your home the colony can be eliminated.