Ants may be tiny pests but what they lack in size, they make up for in numbers. A trail of ants in your home is a nuisance in several ways and no food material is safe when you have ants around. They are excellent foragers and can detect their favorite foods even when you hide them away in your kitchen closets. So, the primary reason for ants to enter your home is to find food for their expanding colony’s inhabitants. When you see ants moving in, it is time for an ant extermination.
In North America, there are several species of ants that have proven to be pests. Some of them are the Pharaoh Ant, the Thief Ant, the Moisture Ant, the Argentine Ant, the Ghost Ant, the Acrobat Ant, the Harvester Ant, the Citronella Ant, the Pavement Ant, the Field Ant, the Carpenter Ant, the Odorous House Ant, the Red Imported Fire Ant and the Bigheaded Ant.
Among these, you will most commonly find Pavement Ants, Odorous House Ants, Pharaoh Ants, Red Imported Fire Ants and Carpenter Ants infesting your home.
Ants, depending on their species, feed on a variety of plant and animal material including small dead insects or the rotting carcasses of other animals, as well as fruits and other plant material. In a home, they find several edibles to munch on and carry back to their nests, and while most ant species stick to the outdoors, they will uninhibitedly forage within your home and keep coming back if they find food here.
Apart from the food factor, ants also infest homes by building their nests within the confines of your premises. Carpenter Ants are probably the most invasive and destructive among ants, as they burrow through the wooden structure of your home while building their colonies, and if left unchallenged, can even cause structural damage.
Therefore, just like most pests from the insect and animal kingdom, ants too invade homes in search of food, water and a safe place to set up their nests.
