A trail of ants means a colony behind your walls.

You see a line of ants marching across your kitchen counter and you wipe them away. They come back. You spray them with Raid. They find a different route. You seal the crack they were using. They find another one.

That is because you are fighting the scouts, not the colony. Killing the ants you can see does almost nothing — the queen is somewhere inside your walls or under your foundation, laying thousands of eggs. Until you deal with her, the ants keep coming.

And if those ants are carpenter ants, you have a bigger problem than a nuisance. Carpenter ants tunnel through damp wood to build their nests. They don’t eat the wood like termites, but the structural damage is just as real — weakened floor joists, hollowed-out window frames, compromised deck posts. By the time you see large black ants inside your home in spring, they’ve likely been nesting in your walls for a year or more.

How to tell what kind of ant problem you have

• Small black or brown ants on kitchen counters and around pet food — likely pavement ants or odorous house ants
• Large black ants (10-15mm) seen indoors, especially in spring — almost certainly carpenter ants
• Small piles of fine sawdust (frass) near baseboards, window frames, or deck posts — carpenter ants tunnelling through wood
• Tiny golden-brown ants near water sources (sinks, bathrooms) — could be pharaoh ants, common in apartment buildings
• Ants trailing in and out of a specific crack or gap — follow the trail to find their entry point
• Winged ants indoors in spring — these are reproductive ants swarming from a mature colony inside your home

How we eliminate the colony

Step one: identify the species. Treatment for carpenter ants is completely different from pavement ants or pharaoh ants. We identify what you have before we do anything else, because the wrong treatment can actually make some infestations worse (pharaoh ants, for example, split into multiple colonies when disturbed by sprays).

For carpenter ants: We locate the nest — or nests, since carpenter ants often have satellite colonies. We use a combination of non-repellent liquid treatment around the exterior, dust injection into wall voids where we detect activity, and bait stations near foraging trails. The non-repellent product is key: ants walk through it without detecting it and carry it back to the nest, spreading it to the queen and brood.

For pavement and house ants: Gel bait placed at trail entry points. The workers carry the bait back to the colony and feed it to the queen. The colony collapses from the inside. We also seal the entry points they were using.

For pharaoh ants: Bait only — never sprays. Pharaoh ants respond to repellent chemicals by budding (splitting into multiple new colonies), which makes the problem exponentially worse. Slow-acting bait is the only reliable method.

What to expect

• Initial visit: Species identification, inspection for nests and entry points, treatment application. For carpenter ants, we also check for moisture issues that attracted them. Takes 1-2 hours.
• Days 1-14: You may still see ant activity as foragers encounter the treatment and carry it back to the colony. This is the product working — not a sign of failure.
• Follow-up (2-3 weeks): We check activity levels and reapply if needed. Most colonies are eliminated within 2-4 weeks.
• Carpenter ant note: If we find structural damage, we’ll let you know what needs repair. We handle the pest — you may need a contractor for the wood.

Common questions about ant extermination

Other services

Where we offer ant extermination