Ants Go Marching

Last year was “definitely weird” for weather and ant pressure in the Northeast and there are more extremes expected this year. Storms are more severe. Wet seasons are soggier. Temperatures are mostly warmer, and certainly volatile, with a side of cold snaps and white stuff.

Expect anything and everything, says Brett Lieberman, owner and CEO of My Pest Pros in Fairfax County, Va. “All the back and forth with the weather is confusing to us and the pests,” he says, such as when mild days are interrupted by extreme temperature spikes. “This drives up pest activity, and the warmer, wet weather is perfect for ants.”

Wash-out rainfall has become more typical. “Those surges push out the ants, so they’re more visible,” Lieberman adds.

Indeed, seeing is believing an infestation is happening for property owners, triggering service calls. This contributes to why 90% of respondents to PCT’s 2026 State of the Ant Control Market survey say converting an initial ant treatment request to a recurring program happens at least sometimes, with nearly half reporting an easy sell.

Get rid of the ants? Sold.

While ant activity is largely seasonal across the country, with the exception of southern and southwest regions, sporadic environmental conditions have thrown off the norm. Dauphin Ewart says winter cold spats mixed with 80- degree days in Austin, Texas, invite mounds to the surface. Still, ant activity has been pretty consistent, reports the CEO of Bug Master. His observations align with 53% of respondents who say the incidence of ant infestations are the same as in years past.

Weather or not, we’re surrounded. Ants outnumber humans millions to one for every person in the world, scientists estimate.

“Ant pressure is a mainstay for the industry, especially in our sub-tropical climate,” says Del Lawson, vice president of Houston-based Modern Pest Control, a third-generation, family-owned operation.

Ants are the reason for about 40% of service calls, he says. Every program sold includes ant control because of a “constant pressure.”

Fifty-two percent of PCT survey participants anticipate ant control revenue to increase at their service locations this year.

To get the word out early, a February Facebook post from Burks Pest Control in Cleveland, Tenn., reminded customers: “Carpenter ants will be swarming soon!” At the time, going into a 10-day forecast of temperatures in the 60s to 80s, owner Michael Burks says the warm streak is enough for these wood- destroying insects to wake up in a big way. And they are a mounting problem in his region.

Across the board, survey respondents are seeing more crazies, wood destroyers, stingers and nuisance ants — including fire ants, odorous house ants, carpenter ants and ghost ants — that some say were probably misidentified in the past.

“We can’t control the weather,” says Lieberman. But the pest management professionals PCT interviewed are gaining control over ant populations on client properties with accurate pest identification, a layered treatment approach and by setting customer expectations upfront.

Here’s what our 2026 State of the Ant Control Market report reveals and what your colleagues are seeing in the field.