The #1 Ant Exterminator in Beaverton
Are ants invading your home, apartment, or office building? If you’ve seen these pesky bugs around, it’s time to call in Beaverton’s best ant removal service, Banish Pest Control.
With more than 12,500 species of ants in the US, and 200+ types of ants living in the Pacific Northwest, having an extermination company nearby is critical. Dealing with an ant infestation is the last thing you want to do.
Beaverton is home to the following kinds of ants: carpenter, flying, white, western thatching, pharaoh, velvety tree, honey, small honey, thief, harvester, odorous house, pavement, sugar ants and little black ants. They range in size from 6 to 20 mm depending on the type and whether it’s a worker or a queen.
Ants are natural foragers that feed on many different types of food. They eat honeydew they collect from aphids and some species will also feed on other insects. Due to the large variety in their diet, they often invade homes in search of sustenance. Once inside, they feed on fruits, sweets, meat, grease and vegetables. The sooner you get a hold of an ant exterminator, the better off you’ll be.
An Ant Removal Service You Can Trust
Does pest control get rid of ants, really? We get that question a lot, which is unfortunate because it tells me that our local businesses and homeowners have worked with quite a few exterminators who didn't do a very good job. There are a variety of effective ant control solutions that a Beaverton pest control company could offer, but it depends on the types of ants that you're dealing with.
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Pavement Ants
Pavement ants are very common because they build their homes inside pavement, usually a driveway. Any time a small crack or crevasse opens, these little black ants take it as an invitation to expand the colony and develop another nest. They carry tiny pieces of debris bit by bit into the crack to build a nest. In addition to inhabiting your driveway, these small black ants can also enter your home. If they can get through expansion joints or slabs near the foundation of your building, ants can make it into the walls and insulation to nest. Pavement ants are most often black in color with pale-colored legs. Despite being active all year round, most reports of these tiny ants come in during the summer months. The diet of pavement ants is any type of food they can access, which could be other insects or fruit and crackers from your kitchen. The moment you see the insects go marching one by one, I'd start looking for an ant extermination company that can take care of it for you, quickly.
Odorous House Ants
Odorous house ants get their name from the odor they produce when they are squished. These tiny ants are brownish black in color, and they are able to nest in many different locations because of their natural camouflage. Outdoors, ant nests are commonly found in the ground, but they can also be found in stacks of firewood, or in any kind of clutter or storage that is undisturbed. Other places include mulch, stones, or boards. Inside a home, it’s possible to find an ant nest inside walls, floors, or even under floor coverings, such as carpet, linoleum, or behind tile. These little black ants are polygynous, meaning there can be multiple queens; this translates into multiple nesting areas and cause quite the pest problem if it's not dealt with right away.
Carpenter Ants
Carpenter ants are the bugs most people are familiar with because they’re located everywhere wood can be found. These larger black ants chew through wood to hollow it out and build a nest. In addition to being a major nuisance, carpenter ants can cause significant damage to any wooden structures in their vicinity. They do not eat the wood however, which is a common misconception; they chew through and discard it instead.
A carpenter ant is comfortable living in any environment with wood, so homes are unfortunately subject to attack. Damp wood and trees are prime real estate for these ants, so if you happen to have a wood pile near your home, you’re asking for trouble. They often build an underground tunnel from a food supply to their nest. Carpenter ants feed on other insects, honeydew, and various other protein and carbohydrate sources. If given a choice between potential food supplies, they will gravitate toward the largest one and take as much as possible for their own colony to starve competing ant species in the area. If you discover black ants in or near your home or commercial property, contact us right away for ant removal before they do any damage. We’ll identify the source of the issue and treat it effectively.
Western Thatching Ants
Western thatching ants are easy to identify because they build large mounds of dirt and plant materials that are easily visible to anyone walking by. These ants are orange and brown in color and work in groups to create large nests. The nests can go up to two feet off the ground and four feet below it, holding millions of ants in a colony. Just 4 hours from Beaverton, a local pest control company discovered a colony with more than 50 million ants. As you have may have noticed, the western thatching ants breed quickly and multiply at an alarming rate. Their diet consists mainly of other insects.
Little Black Ants
Little black ants may just sound like a descriptive term, but it’s the actual name for the species Monomorium minimum. These shiny ants are sometimes as small as 1 mm in length, but a common nest can hold a few thousand of them. Little black ants are scavengers that will eat almost anything, including insects, poop, and any food you have in the house. They travel in packs and can be found in dark corners and wherever food is present. If your Beaverton home or business is infested with these pesky invaders, it’s time to find an ant removal service to get rid of them.
Sugar Ants
The term sugar ant is a blanket word to cover all the different kinds of ants that are attracted to sweets or “sugar”. Pavement ants, carpenter ants, and little black ants are all considered “sugar ants” because of their amazing ability to smell even the smallest crumb you leave behind in your home. And when that happens, you’ll return to a group of them feasting away on the food you left behind.
Just like other insects, they get into your home through open windows and doors, holes in a screen, cracks, crevasses, and the expansion joints in the building’s foundation. Aside from removing food right away and maintaining a clean area, there’s not much that can be done to get rid of ants on your own without the help of an expert.
Hopping online and googling how to get rid of ants will come up with plenty of home remedies and do it yourself ant removal methods, but few if any with provide a long-lasting solution. Take for example the instant kill bait that some stores sell. It will kill the ants that eat it, but what about the rest of the colony? Another example is ant spray. If you spray one area, ants will divide the colony and build another nest; now you have two problems instead of one.