2001.01.28 Why are ants coming into my home?

Some of what is below was taken with permission from Stewart Clark from the following Web page: http://www.terro.com/antcontrolfaq2.php

First one has to learn about ants to understand why they are coming into your house. Being able to identify whether the ant is a queen or a worker is extremely important, as well as identifying the precise reason(s) they are entering your house.

See this section for how to distinguish between termites and ants.

Ants come into houses for various reasons:

• Food Foraging (ants and humans like similiar foods). Ants particularly like sweets and humans usually have large supplies like meat, fat, etc.
• Water Foraging (often in times of drought ants will be found near faucets foraging for it to take back to the nest).
• New queens, from their nuptual flights, are often found in or around homes looking for new nesting sites.
• The colony is using your house for a living quarters. Most often this is indicative of wet and decaying structures. Many species need some moisture in their nesting sites they usually will not inhabit dry housing structures.
• Flooding. Sometimes in extreme cases when ants homes are flooded, they will temporairly occupy human dwellings. This is usually temporary, but it can be extremely annoying.

--Mr. Ant