How to Deal with Pavement Ants

Here in the NorthEast the weather has been wet while interspersed with bright sunny days.  Perfect ant weather.  I was outside the house two days ago doing various tasks when I started noticing all of the pavement ants on our walkways.  Some people call these sugar ants.  They are the very small ants that appear to favor sweet foods and liquids.  They are the ones you will find swarming over a dropped ice cream cone on the sidewalk.

I decided to follow the ant trails and was amazed at the sheer number of ants I saw.  I was alarmed, actually.  I hadn’t sprayed since last year.

I retrieved my ant spray and walked around the perimeter of the house.  In two distinct locations I found large trails of ants traveling up the gutter downspouts.  I sprayed every ant I could see and anywhere I thought they were going or coming from.

It’s important to restrain yourself from ant obliteration long enough to observe them in order to gain valuable information.  This is particularly difficult when you find the ants within your home.  You want to watch and see where which way their food is traveling.  You will see ants carrying food in only one direction… back towards the colony.

From the Outside: If they are carrying food away from your home (most likely), then you can safely wipe out the trail and feel pretty satisfied.  If they are carrying food towards your home, then you need further investigation and potentially professional help.  The last thing you want is to discover an ant colony in your walls.  Yuck.

From the Inside: Ants inside your home will almost always be bring food OUT of your home to their colony somewhere in your yard.  If you find ants inside your home, observe them!  Follow the trail and find out where it leads!  You will eventually find the point where the ants are entering and leaving your home and out into your yard.

At this point I typically do two things:

I use a product called Terro OUTSIDE my home.  I place this stuff directly on the ant trail outside the house.  The ants will no longer need to search for food in your home… they will choose to eat the Terro instead.  The idea is that they will bring this back to their colony and destroy the whole thing.  To use Terro you must be very patient.

After I see that the ants are going for the Terro, then I use normal ant spray inside the house to wipe them out.  Basically what you are doing is cutting them off and offering them a different food supply.  LEAVE THEM ALONE outside your home.  This is the only way to destroy the colony.  Let them eat the Terro and forget about them.

Let me know if you’ve got any other ant control suggestions.