7 Key Signs You Have An Ant Infestation In Your Home

ant infestation

The largest ant colony ever discovered was over 3,700 miles wide. It covered over 97 trees in Europe and luckily was not in someone’s backyard!

Any pest infestation can make your home feel less comfortable and clean, so it is essential to deal with it as soon as possible. Ant infestations are common, especially in places where food or dirty dishes have been left out.

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If you are unsure if you have an ant infestation in your home, keep reading this guide. We will take you through the seven signs that ants may be making themselves at home on your property.

1. Sawdust Trails

Some ants like to burrow their way into your home, primarily through wooden structures like window and door frames. In particular, carpenter ants will eat their way through any wooden structures, leaving a trail of sawdust in their wake.

Check window frames, floorboards, and wooden skirting boards for any signs of sawdust on the floor. It could be evidence that carpenter ants live inside your walls or floors. You may not see the ants themselves, but the sawdust trails will reveal the existence of these common household pests.

2. One or Two Ants

Ants live in an ant colony, so while you may only see one or two ants scurrying around in your property, you can be assured that others are not far behind. If you see an ant or two in your pantry, be sure to move things around and see if you can find others.

Ants often send scouts to identify sources of food, and once they do, the others will follow the scent trail and join them in double-quick time. So, don’t be fooled into thinking that just a couple of ants may have wandered in from the yard. Where there are a couple of ants, there could be many more thousands just waiting for the sign.

3. Hollow Wood

Knock on the wooden parts of your building and listen to the sound. Do they sound hollow at all? Wood should make a dull, solid sound, but if the wood sounds empty or feels weak to the touch, it could be another warning sign that you have ants.

Again, the carpenter ant is usually to blame here as they will make their home inside your house. Ant nests can be found running through interconnecting wooden structures like frames and floorboards and even the walls themselves if they are wooden internally.

Ant nests inside your walls are no joke, and you need to call ant control as soon as possible. They could be undermining the structural stability of parts of your home, so get any hollow wooden structures investigated as soon as you can.

4. Crumbling Trees

If you have lots of trees in your backyard that are close to your home, you should check them for ants. Again, see if the tree sounds hollow or if the wood crumbles under your touch. If so, there may be an ant nest inside.

If the ants live peacefully outside your property, this is fine, but if those trees are close to your home, they could easily make their way in. So keep an eye on any trees for signs of an ant infestation, and don’t let them overrun your garden.

5. Soil Piles

Ants typically build their nests under the ground, and they can make complex and vast networks of tunnels. However, they need to have an exit point where they can come above ground to seek new sources of food.

Commonly, you can see these exit points in paving where they may appear between the cracks. They will look like a small pile of soil with a little hole in the middle. If it is active at the time, you may also see lots of ants passing in and out.

Soil piles are a common sign of an ant nest, and if they are close to your property, they could indicate that ants can easily make their way into your home. Ask a specialist to check them out if you are concerned.

6. Discarded Wings

During the summer, female ants will grow wings to fly away from a nest and start their own colony elsewhere. Once they have used their wings during flying ant season, they will lose them as they settle into their new home.

So a lesser-known sign of an ant infestation is discarded wings, which you may notice on a window sill or on the floor.

If an ant queen has chosen your home as her new colony site, her discarded wings could be an early indicator and will allow you to find the colony and remove it before she gets settled.

7. You Can Hear Them

A large ant colony will be constantly active as thousands of tiny legs march up and down your walls all day and night. If you have an active colony in your walls, there is an excellent chance that you will be able to hear the ants rustling through the wood and filler as they move.

So, don’t put strange noises in your walls down to chance. Get a pest control specialist out to check and make sure to stop the infestation before it gets worse.

How to Stop an Ant Infestation

There are certain things you can do to stop an ant infestation from taking hold in your home. Be sure to store food properly and not leave anything out for too long, especially in the summer.

Seal any cracks in your door frames and windows to deny them entry, and keep an eye on your garden to make sure nothing is encroaching on your home.

If you do suspect you have an ant infestation, then don’t wait to get in touch with us for a free quote so that we can send a specialist to help keep your home ant-free.