If you suspect you have an ant colony in your yard or home, you need to call a professional Las Vegas pest control company immediately. Ants can wreak havoc when they move onto your property. In this guide, you'll learn what kinds of ants may be living with you, the dangers they bring with them, five ways to keep ants off your property, and the best way to protect your home from ants.
The Types Of Ants That Invade Las Vegas Homes
The two most common types of ants in Las Vegas we at Anderson Pest Control see in homes are Argentine ants and harvester ants.
Argentine ants are small, only 1/16 to 1/4 inch long. They're shiny and either dark brown or black. Their bodies have three oval-shaped segments, six legs, and two antennae. When you squash them, they emit a musty odor. They live in large colonies of millions of ants with multiple queens. They prefer sweets like the honeydew aphids in your flowerbeds and garden produce, but they'll scavenge up to 30 feet away from their colony to find food.
Harvester ants are larger, ¼ to ½ inch long. They're orange, red, or brownish-black, with similar body segments as Argentine ants. Most species have a pair of spines sticking out from their midsection. Many also have hairs on their heads that make it look like they have a beard. You'll know you have them on your property from the large bare areas of grass or other vegetation around a cone-shaped colony entry.
If you suspect either of these species or any other type of ants on your property, you need to contact a company specializing in ant control in Las Vegas, like Anderson Pest Control.
The Dangers And Damage Ants Can Create
While Argentine ants aren't known to pose a huge health threat to humans, they do crawl through sewage, dead animals, and trash to get to their food source, picking up diseases along the way. They're particularly known to transmit dysentery and can contaminate your kitchen counters and any food you may have left out. If there are a lot of them, they can destroy poultry or beehives. They will bite humans if they're provoked, but their bites are only mildly painful and don't generally cause a health risk.
Harvester ants, on the other hand, will sting humans, and their stings can cause allergic reactions, especially in people who are sensitive to other insect stings. They can also kill animals that disturb their nests. They have the potential to transmit diseases that can affect humans. However, these ants are most well-known for the damage they do to your lawn when they build their colonies.
If you think you have either of these species on your property, you need to know how to get rid of ants in Las Vegas: by calling Anderson Pest Control to eradicate their colonies.
Five Natural Ways To Keep Ants Away From Your Property
There are several ant prevention tips you can try to keep ants away from your Las Vegas home, including:
- Fixing leaky faucets, pipes, or sprinkler systems that give ants the water source they need to survive.
- Sealing spaces around where your utility cables and pipes enter your home to keep ants out.
- Reseeding bare patches in your yard where ants have killed off the grass.
- Moving yard debris, brush piles, wood piles, and fallen leaves away from your house to eliminate nesting areas.
- Keeping kitchens and outdoor eating areas immaculately clean and clear of food debris so that ants aren't attracted to food in and around your home.
Knowing how to prevent ants in Las Vegas only works if you don't have them on your property already. If you do, you need to know how to get rid of ants permanently.
The Best Way To Protect Your Home From Ants
The best means of ant control for homeowners is to partner with a quality pest control company like Anderson Pest Control. We know how to keep ants away: by using Integrated Pest Management, a combination of multiple techniques that back up and reinforce each other to get the ants out of your house and keep them out for good.
We take a comprehensive approach to ant control. As part of our residential pest control program, we take specific measures to eliminate ant presence around your home. We treat areas of high ant activity, like your expansion joints and flower beds, leaning on green and family-friendly products to eliminate pests effectively. In the springtime, we’ll specifically focus on ant populations as they begin to enter activity around March and April.
Don’t leave your Las Vegas home at the mercy of ants. Contact us today for your free inspection and to learn more about our residential and commercial pest control services in Las Vegas.