Spring in the northwest means rain! And rain brings in sugar ants. Sugar ants are also called odorous house ants in the pest control industry. One way to know if you're dealing with this pest is by the smell given off when they are crushed. Different people compare the scent to different smells-- where one person compares the smell to coconut; another may say it smells like urine. Regardless of the scent, an ant that gives off an aroma or odor when crushed is likely an odorous house ant.
Many people wonder why sugar ants tend to appear after a rain. The answer is simply that the rain washes away honeydew produced by aphids, which is a major source of food for these ants. They are attracted indoors, out of the rain and often find a plentiful food source in kitchens and pantries of homes. Sugar ants can eat a wide variety of human foods and are attracted, as their common name suggests, to foods with sugar. Sugar ants also look for an area to nest and build their colony near food and water supply. Sugar ants can colonize a very wide variety of areas ranging from under a piece of furniture, under/in a toilet seat, in cracks and crevices throughout a home etc. Even outdoors sugar ants will colonize opportunistically under a rock, wood pile, alongside another ant colony, etc. These ants are opportunistic and resilient. A colony can be tricky to locate and can reproduce and grow pretty rapidly-- a queen ant can lay between 2-20 eggs in a day and a colony can have multiple queens..
A colony of sugar ants will range in size from 100-20,000 so you can imagine that it is probably a wise plan to seek a pest control professional right away to avoid a larger, irritating infestation. Because sugar ants move indoors with rain, they are a very common pest here in the rainy northwest. Often people choose to have a regular maintenance program for sugar ants simply because sugar ants are so common in many areas of Portland, Oregon and Vancouver, Washington. A maintenance program is a very cost effective way to manage sugar ants in the northwest.
While sugar ants do not cause structural damage to a home, they can contaminate foods in the kitchen-- nobody likes to pour a bowl of cereal, or scoop sugar into a cup of coffee with ants! They can also be an itchy, tickle-y nuisance.
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Effective pest control services are available in the market that not only contain the growth of pests but also eliminates their infestation to the core.
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