A Cornerstone of PMPs’ Businesses

Ants are enterprising pests with trails of followers, and they represent consistent and increasing service requests from customers.

“Ants are the No. 1 pest that rings the phone and gets us on homeowners’ doorsteps,” said Ben Gillenwaters, training director at Hulett Environmental Services, with locations throughout Florida.

Usual suspects in the Palm Beach County area include ghost ants, big-headed ants and white-footed ants, Gillenwaters reported, calling ant control a “bread and butter” service that offers add-on sales opportunities. “Ants are a constant in the industry, and I don’t see ants going anywhere — if anything, they’re increasing — and I don’t see homeowners ‘getting used to them,’ so to speak, so the phone will continue to ring.”

David Joles also said ants are the top reason customers call on Certus Pest, based in Tampa, where he is COO.

“Ants have surpassed roaches, believe it or not,” he said, citing cases of tawny crazy ants, big-headed ants, Pharaoh ants, fire ants, Argentine and other types with “budding” behavior such as ghost ants and white-footed ants.

Ants are overwhelmingly a revenue-generating nuisance pest management professionals (PMPs) can rely on, based on the 2025 PCT State of the Ant Control Market survey. Thirty-seven percent of respondents reported an increase in pressure and 56% noted no change, so the pressure’s still on. Only 7% of survey participants recorded a decrease. Not surprisingly, 43% of respondents in southern states saw an increase in ant pressure.

Gillenwaters said, “Ants are a year-round problem.”

The Crazy Ones

Jeff McQueen estimates there are 300 different ant species crawling around in the Richmond, Texas, subtropical region where his company, Integrated Pest Management, is based. “We’ve seen waves of tawny crazy ants during the last 15 years and last year, I noticed the service picking back up,” said McQueen, general manager, pointing to land development as a potential trigger.

Invasive species like tawny crazy ants are on the rise, according to 58% of respondents to the PCT survey, and 75% of those PMPs are based in southern states.

McQueen said treatment is mostly via exterior non-repellent liquids and baits. “We find them trailing along the edges of smooth surfaces like sidewalks, patios, foundations and driveways, or in leaves and wood debris,” he said.

Typically, tawny crazy ant pressure occurs outdoors. “We usually get calls before they make it inside a structure,” McQueen said, calling their presence “overwhelming” enough to easily spot.

Ben Chapman said native crazy ants have a tendency to split colonies and form new ones, which generates service calls for Beneli Pest Control in Houston. “They’re similar to tawny crazies in their patterns and movement, there’s just less of them,” said Chapman, who owns Beneli Pest Control with his wife, Eli.

Tawny crazy ant pressure has “progressively gotten worse or stayed the same” for the last couple of years, according to Chapman, recalling an account he serviced five years ago while working at a different company. “Every inch” of the roughly 6,000-square-foot backyard was covered in tawny crazies, dead and alive.

“They were floating in the pool,” he said, noting an expansive wooded area beyond the homeowner’s yard as the source. Inside the home, a wall along the north side was teeming with the ants.

“I could tell where the company before us had sprayed because there were piles of dead ants along the foundation and live ones were climbing over their dead bodies to get into the weep holes.”

Chapman baited the exterior and applied a non-repellent liquid. He employed a blower outdoors to clear away the dead soldiers and a Shop-Vac indoors, one of his go-to cleanup tools.

“We cleared away gallons and gallons of them — I’ve never seen anything else like it,” he said.

No callback was required, so Chapman considered the treatment a major win, especially when he checked in and the customer had no issues. “My theory is, we didn’t kill all of them — just enough for the queen to send a pheromone signal to not send more to the area since she had lost so many workers.”

Wrangling the Wood Workers

Wooded properties and yards in close proximity to forested areas spur carpenter ant problems, which account for about 90% of ant service calls at Pest-End in Plaistow, N.H., according to Justin Marchant, technical director.

“Carpenter ants are nature’s moisture detection system,” he said, noting the species noshes on wood with moisture levels of at least 15%.

Because the pest is so common in Pest-End’s region, the company does not exclude carpenter ant treatment from general pest control, which is often the case. A detailed inspection to locate harborages helps “put together the story,” Marchant said.

Are the carpenter ants casual visitors — foragers popping in and “not much of a threat?” he questioned. Is there a brood nest — and what about satellite colonies?

In the case of potential foragers, Pest-End places baits in suspected ant areas and follows up after a few weeks to see if there is a bigger problem.

Indoors, conducive conditions (moisture) are often found in kitchens and bathrooms, behind walls where a pipe is leaking, in the housing of a poorly ventilated dishwasher, and in attics and crawlspaces.

Outdoors, typical sources include wooded areas, tree stumps, firewood piles and logs, around windows and where branches (or any wood) touches a structure (home, shed, detached garage).

Aside from small black ants and their big-headed cousins, carpenter ants are a big problem in Highland Heights, Ohio, where Anthony DeLisio’s company, Insector Inspector, is located.

According to the survey, carpenter ant pressure in the Midwest (49%) is slightly higher than the Northeast (45%). This species is not much of a concern in the South (12%) or West (10%).

DeLisio recalled one case in a detached garage with overhanging trees. The customer complained about finding sawdust on the car.

“I poked one of the beams and it basically fell apart, and hundreds of ants fell to the ground, so we located the problem,” he said.

Following baiting and spray applications, the owner repaired the garage and trees were trimmed back, per DeLisio’s recommendation.

Older neighborhoods with wood- sided homes tend to be more of an ideal location for ants, and those areas where DeLisio is based also generally involve more mature trees. Lots with sparse vegetation and homes with vinyl siding are less of a carpenter ant target.

Marchant said he experiences the same, but outdoor circumstances play a larger role.

“Vinyl siding has come up so much over the years, but we are not seeing a dip in carpenter ant activity,” he said.