Why Do I Have Ants In My Home During The Winter?

It isn't surprising to see ants in the summer. They can appear in many locations both inside and outside of your home. But during the winter months, ants seem to disappear. You're not likely to see a superhighway of tiny, little ants along the edge of the border between your kitchen and your living room or find your kitchen trash can covered with them when the weather outside is cold. There are two primary reasons for this: most ants do not establish themselves inside human dwellings, and cold weather causes ants to go into dormancy. Today, we're going to take a look at the former because, if you're seeing ants inside your home, those ants are probably ants that have established themselves in your home. And that could be very bad.

There are three ants that are known for creating colonies inside man-made structures. Under certain circumstances, others may too, but we'll focus on these three for the purposes of this article.

Two of the three ants you can expect to see in your home on a cold winter day are odorous house ants and crazy ants. While these two can be frustrating to find in your pantry or kitchen, and even more frustrating to find inside your food packaging, their infuriating presence will have you dealing with them quickly. The real ant threat in your home will be carpenter ants because carpenter ants aren't frustrating, most of the time. If they feed on the food inside your home, they do so at night, while you're sleeping. You might only see one or two carpenter ant scouts walking around out in the open, in any given week, even with a large infestation. And this could lead you to let an infestation persist.

As you are probably aware, carpenter ants chew tunnels and galleries inside wood. If these ants are not properly identified when they appear, and if they are left untreated, they can do a lot of damage to your home.

Ants can be a problem any time of year. When a home has year-round pest service, it has routine inspections and ongoing monitoring of pest pressures performed by an educated pest control professional all year long. It also has routine exterior treatments that significantly reduce the chance of invasion.

All-American Pest Control serves the Middle Tennessee region with industry-leading residential and commercial pest control. For appropriate treatments and routine monitoring of pest pressures on your Tennessee property, reach out to us today to get your service in your home.