Ant Control Grand Rapids
Unified Pest Control can help you get rid of ants permanently in your home or office!
Have you wondered why something as small as an ant can cause so much havoc in your life? While ants are certainly among the tiniest pests we deal with they are the ones that can cause the largest nuisance. If you’ve ever tried unsuccessfully
getting rid of them yourself you have seen firsthand just how stubborn and
persistent they are.
You may have also found yourself at the grocery store spending, looking through the various ant control options and spending money on various off the shelf remedies. Many people will attempt to try and take care of an ant problem before turning to a professional.
As you have mostly likely experienced however, ants are extremely difficult to eliminate. Using the wrong combination of store bought treatments may actually have a negative impact on trying to reach your goal. At Unified Pest Control we utilize industry leading methods to professionally rid your home or commercial property of unwanted ants.
Grand Rapids Ant Control Service
· A Professional Approach – In certain situations we may be able to use ant bait instead of using a spray. The advantage of using bait over spray is that the amount of pesticide is minuscule compared to what is in a spray. Also, just a tiny bit of bait can exterminate an entire colony of ants. When using bait, we’ll apply the bait in crevices and cracks in your home that are inaccessible to pets and children. If that’s not possible they bait is safely contained in plastic stations
· Focused and Controlled Spraying – If our professionally trained exterminators decide that for optimum results the inside of your home needs to be sprayed we will only spray the product into cracks and crevices. This ensures that any pesticides are focused on where the ants are originated from and are not accessible to animals or people.
· Exterior Treatment – In the majority of homes and commercial properties a perimeter treatment is all that is needed to take care of ants. When properly applied by a professional a treatment keeps the ants and the pesticides outside of the home.
About Carpenter Ants in Grand Rapids
Carpenter ants tunnel through wood, damaging structures, like your home or office. Like Termites or Carpenter Bees, they can end up being a structural hazard if allowed to do damage. Carpenter Ants generally look like large black ants. While they have distinguishing characteristics from many other ants, it often takes an experienced eye to understand the difference.
Carpenter ants are social bugs and the worker ants job is to seal the nest and to take care of their Queen, who has no other duty than to lay eggs. The few Workers that emerge from the first brood are small, however these small ants assume the tasks of the colony. They open the chamber to the outside, gather food, start to grow the nest by excavating galleries to increase the size of the nest, and tend the eggs, larvae and pupae of the second generation. Workers spit up food for the nourishment of the establishing larvae.
As the colony grows, satellite colonies are produced and may be spread within a 200-yard radius of the significant nest. As lots of as 12 satellite colonies may be associated with one significant nest. The colony is said to be fully grown when winged reproductives are formed. This happens between 3 and 6 years, at which time the nest can include 2,000 to 3,000 or more ants.
Grand Rapids Ant Prevention
Exterior Baiting Program
Preventing Carpenter Ants in Grand Rapids
The best way to get rid of carpenter ants is to use a professional
systematic approach. Carpenter ants make
this easy for us as their behavior is highly predictable. For instance, the
main colony of carpenter ant population is always outside in a tree. While
there may be multiple nests, there is always only one single queen. Once we
have destroyed the queen, the entire ant colony will collapse. The most
effective way to reach the queen is with well-placed bait. Utilizing our
single-service carpenter ant bait is often enough to address your problems we
also offer packages to for additional treatments to target carpenter ants and
the places they love to hang out – trees, fence posts, wood piles, etc
Preventing Pavement Ants and Other Problems Species
Did you know that most small ants actually live underneath
driveways, patios, walkways, landscaping edging, etc? One of a child’s favorite
pastimes is turning over a large rock or stone and seeing ants scurry away. The
same thing is taking place under your driveway or patio but on a much larger
scale. The only issue with that is it’s not so easy to turn over your driveway
and get an idea of how bad of an ant problem you may have. Our exterminators
are trained to examine your property and narrow in and focus on areas of high
activity. From there we can strategically set bait stations that are tamper
resistant. These stations will be maintained throughout the season helping to
keep the ants away. We recommend this solution for property owners who notice
ants appearing around the same time every year.
Tips for Ant Control in Grand Rapids
If you made it this far you realize by now that getting rid of ants is not an easy task. The most effective solution is to work with a qualified professional like Unified Pest Control. There are several tips and tricks we can recommend if you’d like to address the problem on your own.
• Resist using over-the-counter ant sprays. Unless you are able to spray the entire colony with one blast, we recommend that you avoid pyrethroid sprays all together. Pyrethoid sprays are ant-repelling, instead of ant-killing. This means that spraying these products will keep the ants away for a short time period. Once the pesticide wears off they will come back. Furthermore, many of these sprays that you buy at a store can actually agitate the ant colony. When an ant colony gets agitated it will often times split. This is what is called “budding”. Budding is something you want to avoid as much as possible. Instead of ridding yourself of your ant problem you’ll end up with more nests and more ants on your hands than you know what to do with.
• Many people will often times use a combinations of both ant sprays and ant traps they bought from the store. With good intentions these property owners will combine these products in the same place. The repellent sprays can make the ant baits go bad, making the both ineffective. Our recommendations is to use a bait whenever possible.
• Ants will change their diets over the course of a year. This means that not every ant bait you try will be effective. In your fight against ants you need to be patient and resilient. Feel free to mix up ant baits if your current one is not producing results
• The ants baits that contain liquid borate/borax are top sellers. This is because they attract ants as the ants find the bait to be sweet. The downside of using this type of bait is that it provides a slow kill. A mature colony may be able to reproduce faster than the borax bait kills the colony. We recommend borate and borax baits for satellite nests and young colonies.
Call Today for Ant Control Grand Rapids
If you are located in Grand Rapids or the West Michigan area call Unified Pest Control today for your free no-obligation quote.
