Do you have an ant infestation and unwanted pest issues?
If so call, Seattle’s trusted pest control professionals. As a locally owned and operated business, we know the value of serving our community with trust, honesty, and respect. Using 100% safe techniques to protect your Seattle home and family, we will come to inspect your infestation and provide you with an estimate for extermination services.
Types Of Ants In Seattle
While there are over 12,000 species of ants worldwide, there are 5 common ant types in the Seattle area that create pest control problems for residential and commercial properties.
- Carpenter Ants – Carpenter ants typically dark brown to black in color, range in size from 3 to 133 mm and have large mandibles. Their hind wings are shorter than their front wings. Carpenter ants build their nests in dead, damp, or damaged wood with many carpenter ants targeting homes with leak problems. Carpenter ants dig tunnels in the wood and can create several colonies leading to structural damage. Learn more….
- Moisture Ants – Typically yellow in color, moisture ants love damp humid environments. Moisture ants will build their colonies near a home’s foundation leading to a gradual home invasion. To remove moisture ants, you must not only eliminate the visible ant colony but also find the source of the initial entry point. An initial sign of moisture ants is a frothy substance leaking from the seams in your home’s wall. Learn more…
- Odorous House Ants – Named due to the distinct rotten coconut odor emitted when crushed, odorous house ants are typically brown or black in color and 2.4 to 3.3 mm in length. These house ants are drawn to sweet foods and meats making kitchen pantries a common target for odorous house ant pest infestations. One of the most common types of ants, they do bite but don’t cause much pain. Learn more…
- Pavement Ants – Named due to where they build nests – sidewalks, patios, driveways – pavement ants are light brown to black with parallel lines on their head and thorax. They will generally eat anything including food and other insects.
- Pharaoh Ants – Colonies of pharaoh ants are large with populations reaching into the thousands. Pharaoh ants will nest anywhere that provides protection from wall voids to furniture to appliances. Yellow in color, these ants are drawn to sweet foods, honey, peanut butter, and also eat other insects.
Facts About Ants
Ants are a strange, diverse species that are both useful in our ecosystem while wreaking havoc when infestations occur in our homes.
- Most ants can lift anywhere from 10 to 50 times their body weight with some lifting over 100x their bodyweight.
- Ants don’t have lungs. Instead, ants have a series of holes on the sides of their bodies that distribute oxygen to the cells in their bodies.
- Ants are as old as dinosaurs! A study found that ants first came to being around 130 million years ago. Ants survived the mass extinction that killed off dinosaurs and the ice age.
- There are over 12,000 species of ants and can be found on all continents other than Antarctica.
- To “hear”, ants listen by feeling vibrations in the ground. Their feet have special sensors that help interpret signals.
- In 2000, the largest ant nest was found in Argentina. At over 3,700 miles wide, over 33 different ant colonies lived together with millions of nests and billions of workers.
- Queen ants can live up to three decades. Once the queen ant dies, the rest of the ant colony also dies within a few months.
- Ants leave chemical pheromone trails to warn of nearby danger, provide a path to food sources, and attract mates!
- Worker ants are female stay in the nest and help to care for the young.
Ant Control Tips
No one wants an ant infestation so what can you do to proactively keep ants out of the home and keep the pest problem under control? Here are some easy tips for keeping unwanted ants out of your home or business. If you do find yourself with an ant pest problem, call a professional pest control service to help eliminate the issue. while some home remedies might help mask the problem, you’ll need to get to the entry points to truly eliminate the issue.
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- Keep Your Home Clean – Vacuum, mop and wipe down surfaces regularly to get rid of any potential food sources including sticky substances that go unnoticed on countertops. Clean up spills when they happen and keep your dirty dishes cleaned.
- Store Food In Airtight Containers – Restrict ant’s ability to access food by storing all food in airtight containers.
- Seal Up Your Home – Make sure ants can’t get in through cracks in your exterior seals. Close the gaps around windows, doors, and walls with caulk.
About Willard’s Pest Control
Willard’s Pest Control Company, established in 1987 as a one-person family operation. Today, 32 years later, we are a growing family run company employing 30+ people for our Seattle pest control services.
We believe in providing safe, honest work to the people of the Seattle community and are actively involved in the Washington State Pest Management Association. Through this association, we work to promote professionalism and safety within the extermination industry.
Our service area includes Auburn, Federal Way, Kent, Renton, Tacoma, Woodinville, Seattle, Bellevue, Sammamish, Kirkland, Redmond & Issaquah areas.
