How to get rid of ants

While a wide range of do it yourself products are available for ants, many times effective ant control requires a professional pest control service to gain control and prevent recurrence.

Rentokil specialists are skilled, experienced professionals – they are certified, licensed applicators and are required to participate in regular training programs to maintain their expertise. They understand the habits of each species and use that knowledge when developing a control program for your home. They also have respect for you, your family, your home, your business and your time.

Although many homeowners struggle with do it yourself ant control remedies the results are often less than satisfactory. Small problems can develop into large ones and this is when many people seek out the services of a pest control professional to prevent future infestations.

Once they’ve identified your ants, they can use a range of powerful insecticides to deal with them efficiently. This gives you the reassurance that the problem has been fully dealt with.

Treatments are targeted to your specific ant species in order to solve the problem quickly, while ensuring the safety of your family and pets.

Once the ants have been dealt with, you can take precautions to stop them coming back. One particularly important precaution is covering any food in storage areas - you don’t know where ants have been walking before they march across your food. Ants are known to infest specific areas of homes such as kitchens, bathrooms and gardens.

Call Rentokil at 1-877-690-2115 to talk to an expert about getting rid of ants.

In the commercial environment ants are more than just a nuisance. They can cost you money and harm your reputation. This is particularly true in organizations that handle food - like food processing plants and restaurants and bars, hospitals - or need to keep areas sterile in businesses such as healthcare facilities and pharmaceutical industries.

Premises like warehouses and food retail stores that store food and water need to make sure they have the highest standards of hygiene – and that means being ant-free.

Without adequate ant control in your business you could suffer from:

Our Pest Control Technicians understand the habits of different types of ant and can offer discreet and targeted ant control. It goes without saying that all our treatments are safe for your staff and customers.

Give us a call and we’ll set the following plan in motion:

Call us today at 1-877-690-2115 or contact us online to learn how our services can help you get rid of ants.

Although carpenter ants don’t spread disease, they can be a considerable nuisance and can cause damage to your home.

Often confused with termites, carpenter ants do not eat wood but tunnel through it to build nests. Unlike other ant species, carpenter ants can be difficult to locate and require professional treatment because of the damage they cause to wood elements and foam insulation in your home.

Rentokil technicians have many years of experience in carpenter ant control. We offer an inspection service for your home, which you can book online or over the phone at 1-877-690-2115.

Rentokil Pest Control technicians are:

• Skilled, experienced professionals
• State certified
• Licensed applicators
• Knowledgeable - they understand carpenter ant habits and use that knowledge to develop a carpenter ant control program for your home

Rentokil recommends the below carpenter ant control methods depending on the specific nature of your infestation.

• Dust Material Treatments – A very effective treatment method for carpenter ants indoors; pesticidal dust materials both flush out hidden ant nests and remove the carpenter ants.
• Nest & Barrier Treatments – The most common method of treatment for carpenter ants is the treatment of nests and barriers with residual insecticides.
• Perimeter Treatments – In addition to applying a treatment to any carpenter ant nests/barriers, a treatment is applied to the perimeter of your home with a liquid residual material.

• Carpenter ants are one of largest ant species found in the United States.
• Carpenter ants are usually most active during the spring and summer months and forage for food at night. They vary in color but are generally black or dark bodied and about 12.7 mm in length.
• Although they’re generally larger than other ants, size can’t always be used as an identifying feature with carpenter ants.
• Carpenter ants are polymorphic which means they can come in a variety of sizes.
• For the most part there are three size classes, each with different job classifications. The major workers are the largest ants in a colony and contain most of your large soldier ants.
• Media carpenter ants are mid-sized ants and minors are your smallest size category. Media and minor ants do most of the food gathering and colony construction.
• Winged Carpenter ants (also known as ‘swarmers’) are sometimes mistaken for termites. 
• Carpenter ants feed on living and dead insects as well as anything people consume.

There are a number of signs, which may indicate a carpenter ant problem in your home.

• Winged Carpenter ants (swarmers) - emerging from around baseboards, window casings or vents. They usually emerge in spring or summer and if you see any more than 20, it may indicate the presence of a large colony.
• Noise - if you hear a crunching sound it could be the sound of rustling from their nests in wood in your home. Nests are usually built in wood structures and can also be found in wall or ceiling voids.
• Sawdust – as nests become established in wood, carpenter ants often leave behind a trail of sawdust, which usually leads back to the nest.
• Damaged wood – carpenter ants tunnel through wood to create their nests, creating ‘galleries’ in wood, which have a clean, smooth and sandpapered appearance

Are you worried about carpenter ants invading your home? Carpenter ants often enter your home in an attempt to find food, and they are particularly attracted to sweet substances. There are a number of steps that you can take to prevent them entering your home, by eliminating the conditions that are attractive and supportive to these ants.

Tips To Prevent Carpenter Ants:

• Always cover food and store food in containers.
• Clean up food and liquid spills immediately.
• Seal any cracks and crevices in your home which may serve as entry ways.
• Eliminate moisture problems in and around your home – carpenter ants prefer moist places to dry environments.
• Replace any decayed wood – nests are often found in rotten wood.
• Store firewood away from your home and keep it dry and elevated to allow air circulation – firewood is one of the easiest ways to carry these ants into your home, so make sure you check the wood for signs of infestation.
• Remove nearby rotting or dead trees in your backyard – these often provide ideal conditions for a carpenter ant nest and a good base from which they can explore the area closer or even inside your home. Carpenter ants are known to travel great distances for food.

The most effective way to get rid of carpenter ants is to find the nest and destroy it. Common places to find carpenter ant nests include hollow doors, window sills, roof areas and wall voids. However, it can sometimes be difficult to find the nest for a number of reasons:

• Carpenter ants are nocturnal, you will often have to wait for night time to find a trail, which could lead to the nest. To make this more difficult, carpenter ants do not tend to travel in large numbers, so a trail may be even harder to spot.
• Carpenter ants don’t usually just set up one nest, but a whole series of ‘satellite’ nests too, which ensures the colony’s survival even if one nest may be destroyed.
• Carpenter ants can do considerable damage to timber in your home – it may be necessary to replace timbers if they have been very badly damaged. You should ensure that all the ants have been destroyed, before you begin to replace damaged wood in your home.

For these reasons, we recommend that you contact a professional pest control company to get rid of the carpenter ants for you to be certain of a thorough and complete job.

Drawn to moisture, colonies of carpenter ants will infiltrate homes and build nests in wood near:  

• Windows
• Doorframes
• Attics
• Chimneys
• Bathtubs
• Any other area in your home with damaged or waterlogged wood

Dust material application
In many situations the use a dust material will be used to find and eliminate nests of carpenter ants in the interior of a home.  A pesticidal dust bulb and extension can reach into void areas and, when properly applied, the dust will float and thoroughly cover the hidden areas where carpenter ants can hide within a structure.  

Dust material treatments will be applied from the inside and will be followed up by a treatment from the outside. The two-fold approach helps to ensure that no hidden areas where nests may exist are overlooked.  

Perimeter treatments
A treatment using non-repellent materials will be applied to the perimeter, focusing in on trails of carpenter ants that have been identified and problem areas where trails can potentially appear. The treatment can extend from the ground to any parts of the home’s exterior that the insects could use to enter the property.

The technician will also apply the treatment to any cracks in the home’s foundation by which carpenter ants and many other insects frequently use to enter residences.

Carpenter ant nest treatments
Nest and barrier treatments are another component of Rentokil’s carpenter ant control solutions. It is crucial that all nests are detected and treated in order to rid the home of all ongoing carpenter ant treatments. It can often be very difficult to spot carpenter ant nests without a trained eye and the right equipment. That’s why it is crucial to contact pest control professionals in the instance that your home faces a carpenter ant problem.

Call us at 1-877-690-2115 for details on our carpenter ant control services or contact us online.