So you have ants in the house. That’s not surprising, as every spring they return, making their way into our Long Island homes and businesses. But how concerned should you be if your home is being taken over by ants? Well, as any property owner should, you definitely want to protect your home or business from invading ants, but the question you should be asking is “are these ants dangerous, or a just a nuisance?” The Long Island pest control professionals at Parkway Pest Services want to help you answer this question by helping you determine what type of ant has invaded your New York, New Jersey or Connecticut property.
Wood destroying ants are dangerous, not to people but to the structural integrity of a home. The carpenter ant is the wood-destroying ant we should be concerned with in our area and that is because they enter wooden structures and create galleries for their nests. They don’t actually ingest the wood in our properties, but by hollowing it out, they can make the wood structurally unsound. Carpenter ants are typically black or red (or a combination of the two) and usually range between 1/8 of an inch and ½ an inch long. Their large mandibles on the front of their heads allow them to chew through wood. If you’ve seen these ants in your property, it is best to contact a NY pest control company immediately to make sure that your structure is not being destroyed from the inside out. Also, carpenter ants and termites are often mistaken for each other, which is another great reason to get help right away!
Nuisance ants are not dangerous, but can be extremely annoying and can even contaminate our food. Nuisance ants include over 14,000 species of ants, but the ants we are most concerned with in our area include the odorous house ant, the pavement ant, and the pharaoh ant. These ants are social insects that live in colonies typically outside of your property. They will enter homes and businesses in search of food and if they find it, they will leave pheromone trails to let other ants in the colony know about the great discovery they have made inside your home. They can get into the food inside our home and contaminate it and their ability to infest in large numbers can be extremely frustrating.
As the weather warms up and summer approaches, we will be seeing more and more cases of ants inside people’s properties in Long Island, Westchester County or elsewhere in our service area. If you have seen ants and you’re not sure whether it is a wood destroying pest or simply a nuisance pest, contact the Long Island exterminators at Parkway Pest Services. Our qualified technicians can take a look at your ant infestation and help you determine the specific pest and what can be done to eliminate the infestation and keep them from returning. Contact us today for more information on our ant control services as well as our year-round pest control packages that are available for property owners throughout Long Island, the five boroughs, Westchester County, NY and Fairfield County, Connecticut.