What To Do About An Ant Infestation In Your Cypress Home
You wake up on a summer morning and head into the kitchen to make yourself a cup of coffee. Once the coffee is percolating, you grab your favorite mug from the cupboard, pull a spoon out of the utensil drawer, and reach for the sugar bowl on the counter. As you lift the lid, you are quickly dismayed to find tiny black ants crawling around inside the bowl.
After dumping the entire contents of the bowl into the trash, you return to the counter with a bag of sugar from the pantry, ready to try again. Before you can set it down, though, the slightest movement on the countertop catches your eye. You look closer and discover an ant on the counter, quickly followed by another, then another. Half a dozen ants are crawling across your counter in search of the sugar bowl that was there just moments ago.
If this situation or a similar one has ever played out in your Cypress home, you know what it feels like to experience an ant infestation. These pests seem to appear out of nowhere, and once inside your house, they can become extremely difficult to get out of your home. While many ants are simply a nuisance, others can cause serious problems, either inside your home or in your yard. Knowing what to do about an ant infestation is important so that you can safely, quickly, and effectively take care of the issue before it leads to bigger problems.
For ant pest control in Cypress, Modern Pest Control is the company to call. Founded in 1952, we deliver personalized and prompt pest control using the most up-to-date strategies and methods. Our family-run business combines experience with the latest advances in our industry to make sure you receive the best services possible. When ants get into your Cypress home, you need Modern Pest Control for ant control solutions that work.
How To Identify An Ant Infestation In Your Home
There are many species of ants in Cypress. In fact, in Texas, there are more than 250 different species of ants. Some species are commonly found in and around the houses in our area. Some of the most common ants found in homes in our area include:
Fire ants
Ghost ants
Crazy ants
Carpenter ants
Pharaoh ants
Most ant species are active during the day. This daytime activity is helpful when it comes to identifying an ant infestation in or around your house because you’ll usually see worker ants moving around inside your home throughout the day. Unlike many other pests, such as cockroaches or termites, that stay hidden or are mostly nocturnal, most ants don’t mind coming out in the open during the day as they forage for food. The surest sign that you have an ant infestation in your Cypress home is finding ants in your Cypress home.
There are other signs of an ant infestation that you can look for if you think you might have an ant problem. Fire ants can get inside homes, but more often are a problem on the lawns of Cypress properties. You can identify a fire ant infestation by the large mounds they create on your lawn. Fire ant mounds are often near sidewalks or driveways and can be very large. A mature fire ant mound can be 18 inches high and 30 inches wide. If you could dig into the ground to see the tunnels and nests, you might have to go as far down as ten feet to reach the end of it! Finding fire ant mounds on your property is a sure sign of a fire ant infestation.
Carpenter ants are one of the few mainly nocturnal ant species. You may see them during the day, but they are more active at night, making identifying a carpenter ant infestation slightly more difficult than identifying other ant species infestations.
If you think you might have carpenter ants in your house, look for:
Small piles of frass (a sawdust-like material) on the floor near walls or wooden beams.
Small holes in wooden structures in your house.
A hollow sound when you knock on the wooden structures in your house.
Faint rustling sounds coming from inside your walls, especially at night.
Shed wings near baseboards or window sills.
Large black ants in your house.
If you’ve seen ants in your house, found fire ant mounds outside, or seen any of the signs of a carpenter ant infestation, you likely have an ant problem. But is an ant problem something you even need to be concerned about?
The Trouble With Ants Crawling Around Your Home
Finding ants in your house can be annoying, but is it really a problem? Just because you realize you have an ant infestation, does that mean you need to do something to get rid of it? The short answer is yes. Depending on the species of ants in your house, a variety of issues could occur due to the presence of those ants. It doesn’t matter if they are dangerous ants or nuisance ants because every species causes some type of problem for Cypress homes.
Some ants are just a nuisance. Ghost ants and crazy ants fall into this category. They are annoying, and they might give off a slightly unpleasant odor when crushed, but they won’t do any real damage to your house or harm your family. However, even nuisance ants can contaminate food. Since most ants move into your home searching for food, they’ll likely get into some of your food items. Because of this, one of the best ant prevention tips is to keep all of your food stored in hard-sided containers with tightly-fitting lids so they can’t get into your food. This step will not only discourage them from coming into your house but also save you money because you won’t have to throw out food that they contaminated.
Unfortunately, not all ants are just a nuisance. Carpenter ants are destructive to your Cypress home. Although they don’t eat wood as termites do, carpenter ants do chew through wood as they create tunnels and nests inside wooden items. When they get into your house, these wood-destroying habits can become a serious problem because the carpenter ants will damage the structural elements of your home. Over time, this damage can become substantial and make your home a dangerous place to live as all of those wooden elements become weaker and weaker.
Some ants are a nuisance, some ants are destructive, and finally, some ants are a problem because they are harmful to your health and the health of your family. Pharaoh ants are well-known for spreading diseases, especially since they often get into healthcare settings and harm people with compromised immune systems. Pharaoh ants can transmit a variety of illnesses, such as salmonellosis, clostridium, staphylococcus, and streptococcus. While a healthy person can often recover, people who are already sick and contract a disease spread by pharaoh ants can experience deadly consequences.
Fire ants also harm your health, but not because of the diseases they spread. Fire ants are dangerous because of the painful stings they can inflict on people. If you accidentally step on a fire ant mound, hundreds of fire ants will immediately swarm over you and sting you repeatedly. These stings are incredibly painful and can also be dangerous to your health. Although most healthy people will recover from fire ant stings, young children, older adults, or people with compromised health can be severely affected by these stings, even fatally so.
It’s hard to imagine something as tiny as an ant as dangerous to humans, but it’s true. Some ants are major trouble when they get onto your Cypress property or your home. Keeping ants out of your house and off your property has to be a priority when you discover an ant infestation.
Why Do-It-Yourself Ant Control Usually Fails
No matter what species of ant has found its way onto your property, it’s important that you get rid of them. You may decide to try a do-it-yourself method to try to eliminate your ant problem, but can effective ant control happen with DIY treatments? Usually not.
The first reason that do-it-yourself ant control usually fails is that it doesn’t take ant behavior or preferences into account. Different ant species are drawn to different areas, prefer different foods, and act in different ways. Some ants like hot, humid areas; others easily adapt to drier climates. While most ants enjoy sweet foods, some also love proteins. If you don’t know what species of ant is in your house or how ants behave, it’s likely that you won’t use the right products and that you won’t use those products in the right places.
DIY ant control can also be ineffective because of myths that circulate about what is and isn’t effective at eliminating ants. For example, does vinegar kill ants? Many people would tell you that it does. The truth is that although vinegar might repel ants for a little while, it won’t kill them, and it won’t get rid of your ant problem. If you use ineffective treatment methods, your ant problem won’t go away.
Another problem with do-it-yourself ant control is that it can actually make the problem worse. One popular ant control method for fire ants is to pour boiling water onto a mound. Although this sounds like an effective way to kill ants, it can worsen the problem. While some of the fire ants will die, others will be alerted that there is a threat, which will send them deeper underground. In some instances, an ant colony will split up to better ensure the colony’s survival. You may think you’ve taken care of the problem, but it is a temporary fix. Eventually, the fire ants will return and possibly be worse than they were before.
The Trick To Getting Rid Of An Ant Infestation For Good
If you are serious about getting rid of an ant infestation in your Cypress home, it’s best to skip over the do-it-yourself methods of ant control in Cypress. They rarely work, can make the issue worse, and will cost you money, time, and frustration. Instead, you should contact the best pest control company for ants in the Cypress area.
Modern Pest Control has over 70 years of experience protecting Cypress homes from ant infestations. We utilize a five-step process to fully eliminate ants from your house so that you won’t have to deal with them anymore.
The first step is a thorough inspection to identify entry points, nesting locations, and conducive conditions. We’ll then enact cultural, mechanical, and physical controls to discourage ants from getting into or near your house. These controls help prevent future ant infestations and can be as simple as moving outdoor trash cans farther away from your house. We’ll then customize a treatment plan that targets the ants in your house, choosing what products to use based on your home’s specific ant control needs. One of our licensed pest control technicians will implement a plan to eliminate your ant problem. Finally, we’ll provide you with the follow-up services you need to take care of any lingering issues if they occur.
At Modern Pest Control, we care about your family, and we care about delivering effective ant control services that do what we say they will do. We won’t rest until we eliminate your ant problem, and we’ll provide you with the education and information you need to make sure another infestation doesn’t occur. Contact us today to request your ant inspection; we look forward to serving you.