Crofton Ant Control

Odorous House Ants Along the Row

If you have a line of tiny dark ants along the backsplash, around the sink, or across the bathroom floor, it is almost always odorous house ants. Crush one and it smells like rotten coconut. They nest outside under mulch, pavers, and landscape stone, and in a townhome row that bed runs unbroken along every unit. When it rains hard or turns hot and dry, the colony moves toward the moisture and food inside. Spring is when most Crofton families first notice them, usually in the kitchen or a bathroom.

Bathrooms are a clue in themselves. Daren and another technician were once stumped by ants in a kitchen that kept coming back no matter what they tried. The answer turned out to be upstairs: cracked grout around a bathtub was leaking into the wall above the kitchen, and that damp spot kept the ants coming. Now cracked tub caulk and grout are among the first things he checks. If your ants show up near a tub or shower, our article on ants in the bathroom explains why.

Why Store-Bought Spray Makes It Worse

Odorous house ant colonies have many queens and split easily. A repellent spray kills the ants in front of you and warns the rest. The survivors break off and start new nests, often deeper in the wall or in the unit next door. That is why one trail becomes three a month after a DIY treatment. Non-repellent products work the other way. The ants never notice them, so they carry the material back to every queen. You can read more on our odorous house ant page.

Inside: Follow the Trail Back

Your technician starts where you have been seeing ants and works backward. Kitchens, bathrooms, the laundry room, the pantry, and the gaps where pipes and wires come through the wall. In a townhome, we pay close attention to the shared walls and the garage. In an older split-level, it is often the lower level, the sliding door to the deck, and the window sills. Inside work is targeted to cracks, crevices, and voids. You do not need to leave the house or empty your cabinets.

Outside: The Perimeter and What Is Feeding It

Then we walk the outside. Foundation, mulch beds, downspouts, deck posts, driveway and patio joints, and the roofline where branches touch the gutters. We lay down the treated perimeter band. We also point out what is drawing the ants in: mulch mounded over the siding, a gutter spilling onto the fascia, a branch resting on the roof, or a stump from a storm-downed oak. Fix those and the treatment holds much longer.

Following Maryland's Rules

Maryland licenses pest control companies and certifies their applicators through the Maryland Department of Agriculture. Our licensed technicians apply every product by its label and by state rules, and our internal research team removed 9 of the harshest products common in this industry from our programs. After every visit you get a report of what we did and what we used. Then you are on the triannual schedule: three visits a year, timed to the ant season, with unlimited free callbacks in between.