Hyattsville Ant Control
Family-owned & local since 1968
Carpenter ants in porch beams, pavement ants on the basement slab, tiny ants at the sink. We find the nest and take out the whole colony.
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From Your Hyattsville Neighbors
Trusted Ant Control in Hyattsville, MD — in Our Customers' Words
Hear what Northern Virginia and Maryland homeowners have to say about our service — in their own words. Real customers from real homes, sharing why they trust Better Termite with what matters most.
- Homes protected
- 100k+
- Google reviews
- 4.9★
- Years local
- 58+
Why Better Termite
Ant Control in Hyattsville you can trust — from $49/mo with no binding contracts.
Lower-Impact Products
Hand-picked, EPA-approved treatments selected by our research team — without 9 of the harshest products still used by most companies.
Local Ant Control Experts
Family-owned since 1968, with 300+ years of combined experience protecting Hyattsville homes. A licensed local tech answers the phone.
The Better Promise
Unlimited free re-services and no binding contracts — we keep coming back until your problem is gone. Cancel anytime with 30 days notice.
About Better Termite
Ant Control Built for Hyattsville's Porches, Cellars, and Creek Valleys
Why the Same Ants Keep Coming Back to the Same Houses
Hyattsville was laid out in 1873, and a lot of it still looks the part. Wood-frame houses with wide front porches. Brick and fieldstone foundations. Cellar windows that were built long before anyone thought about sealing out bugs. Add the Northwest Branch and Northeast Branch of the Anacostia running along the edges of town, and you get a city where ants never have to look very far for water, wood, or a way inside.
That is why store-bought sprays tend to fail here. You kill the ants you can see on the counter, and the colony living in a soft porch beam or under the basement slab just sends out more. Fixing the problem means finding where they live and treating the colony itself.
Better Termite & Pest Control is a third-generation, family-owned company that has treated homes across Prince George's County since 1968. When you call, a licensed technician picks up, not a call center. Ant plans start at $49/month with a $200 setup fee on the first visit. Every plan comes with unlimited free callbacks and no binding contract.
Local Knowledge
What Makes Hyattsville Prime Ant Territory
A Shrinking Canopy Full of Dead Wood
Hyattsville has been a Tree City USA for more than 30 years, and the city requires a permit to take down large trees on private land. Even so, a 2020 canopy study found the city lost about 236 acres of tree cover between 2009 and 2018, dropping from 785 acres to 548. The study named the emerald ash borer as one of the main causes, along with new building and old age.
For carpenter ants, that loss is a buffet. Think of an ash that is dying on its feet, a hollow limb over the roof, or a stump cut flush and left to rot. That damp, softening wood is exactly what a colony wants. Once the main nest is established outdoors, the colony often builds satellite nests in nearby houses. The porch beam twenty feet from a dead tree is a short walk.
Stream Valleys and Parkland on Three Sides
David C. Driskell Community Park, called Magruder Park until 2021, covers 32 acres off Hamilton Street and opens onto the Northwest Branch Trail. Its wooded edge backs right up to houses. The Rhode Island Avenue Trolley Trail starts where it meets the Northwest Branch Trail and heads north toward College Park. The Northeast Branch closes off the east side of town. These green strips stay shaded and wet, which keeps leaf litter and fallen logs soft all summer. Odorous house ants and carpenter ants both thrive there.
Rain is the trigger. When a summer storm soaks the ground along the Northwest Branch floodplain, flooded colonies move uphill and look for dry space. In Hyattsville, that dry space is often your kitchen wall or the gap where a brick foundation meets a wood sill. The ants are not new. They just moved in out of the weather.
Two Kinds of Housing, Two Kinds of Ant Problems
The termite protection page for Hyattsville homes covers the wood-to-soil risks of the Historic District in depth. For ants, the short version is this. Older frame houses get carpenter ants in wet wood. The newer slab-built townhomes in the Arts District and West Hyattsville get pavement ants and odorous house ants coming up through slab joints and utility gaps. Most streets in town have both kinds of homes within a few blocks, so we see every combination.
Ant Control
Carpenter Ants in Hyattsville's Historic Homes
Porch Roofs, Sills, and Kit-House Framing
The Historic District holds roughly 600 structures, from Queen Anne and Second Empire homes on the oldest blocks to rows of bungalows and foursquares. A dozen or so Sears mail-order kit houses still stand. Almost all of them have one thing in common: a wooden porch exposed to a century of rain. When a porch roof leaks, a gutter overflows, or a column sits in a puddle at the base, the wood softens. Carpenter ants do not eat that wood. They chew it out to make galleries for the colony.
Watch for large black ants indoors, winged ants near windows in late winter or spring, and small piles of coarse sawdust mixed with insect parts. That debris is called frass, and our guide to what carpenter ant frass looks like shows how to spot it under a beam or window trim. A faint rustling inside a wall at night is another clue.
How We Knock Out the Parent Colony
Carpenter ant colonies split into a parent nest, often in a tree or stump outside, and satellite nests inside the house. Treat only the satellite and the parent colony refills it. We trace the foraging trails along baseboards, wall voids, and any wood that feels soft or damp, then use non-repellent products the ants carry back to both nests. If you want to know more about the species itself, the carpenter ant profile in our pest library covers its life cycle and habits.
Ant Control
Pavement Ants and Kitchen Ants in Townhomes and Basements
Little Dirt Piles Are the Giveaway
Pavement ants are small, dark brown, and easy to miss until they push soil up through a crack. In Hyattsville you will see the tiny mounds along brick sidewalks, between patio pavers, and against the edge of a basement slab. Inside, they come up through floor cracks and the gap where pipes pass through concrete. Heated basements can keep a colony active well into the cold months. The pavement ant guide covers how to tell them apart from other small brown ants.
The townhomes and condos in the Arts District and the newer homes near West Hyattsville Metro sit on slabs with long runs of shared foundation. A colony under one end of a row can feed ants into several units. That is why we look at where the trail actually starts before we treat, not just where you see it.
Odorous House Ants After a Storm
Odorous house ants are tiny black ants that line up along a counter edge and give off a rotten-coconut smell when you crush one. Each colony has many queens. Spray a trail with a repellent and the colony just splits and moves. They nest in mulch and leaf litter outside, then head indoors for water when a heavy rain floods their nest or a dry spell drives them toward the sink. Our article on ants living inside walls explains why the trail often seems to come out of nowhere.
Ant Control
Your First Ant Visit, Step by Step
Inside: Following the Trail Home
We begin at the spot where you noticed activity and work backward. In a Hyattsville house that usually means the kitchen and bath plumbing, the cellar where the wood sill rests on masonry, old window frames, and the ceiling of an enclosed porch. Treatment goes into the cracks, voids, and pathways the ants use, not across open floors. Most families go about their day while we work.
Outside: Cutting Off the Next Colony
Outside, we treat a band around the foundation and flag whatever drew the colony toward your house. We will point out mulch piled against siding, a downspout that dumps water at the porch steps, shrubs and vines touching the house, and dead limbs or stumps close to the walls. Fixing a few of those makes the treatment last longer. After the visit you get a written report of what we did and the products we used, and we come back 3 times a year to keep it going.
Carpenter ants forage across mulch beds that sit right against old Hyattsville sill plates
Porch ceilings, posts, and beams get a close look on every Hyattsville visit
Odorous house ants follow the same trail from a yard nest to the kitchen sink for weeks
Dead and dying trees left behind by the emerald ash borer make easy carpenter ant nests
A family-owned company serving Prince George’s County homes since 1968
Pavement ants travel up through slab cracks and foundation joints into basements
Everything We Do
Every service we offer in Hyattsville — one local team, one phone call.
Core Programs
- Home Pest Control in Hyattsville
- Termite Control in Hyattsville
- Rodent Control in Hyattsville
- Mosquito & Tick Control in Hyattsville
- Extermination Services in Hyattsville
- Eco-Friendly Pest Control in Hyattsville
- Sentricon® Termite Baiting in Hyattsville
- IN2CARE® Mosquito System in Hyattsville
- Commercial Pest Control in Hyattsville
- Pre-Construction Termite Control in Hyattsville
Insects & Spiders
- Ant Control in Hyattsville
- Carpenter Ant Control in Hyattsville
- Sugar Ant Control in Hyattsville
- Spider Control in Hyattsville
- Roach Control in Hyattsville
- German Cockroach Control in Hyattsville
- Oriental Cockroach Control in Hyattsville
- American Cockroach Control in Hyattsville
- Flea Control in Hyattsville
- Silverfish Control in Hyattsville
- Carpet Beetle Control in Hyattsville
- Pantry Pest Control in Hyattsville
- Stink Bug Control in Hyattsville
- Lady Bug Control in Hyattsville
- Boxelder Bug Control in Hyattsville
- Cricket Control in Hyattsville
- Tick Control in Hyattsville
- Earwig Control in Hyattsville
- Millipede Control in Hyattsville
- Centipede Control in Hyattsville
- Pill Bug Control in Hyattsville
- Springtail Control in Hyattsville
- Clover Mite Control in Hyattsville
Stinging & Flying
Rodents & Wildlife
What Prince George's County Homeowners Say
1800+ Reviews on Google "We had a bad cockroach problem - we knew it was bad because of all the baby cockroaches we spotted. It took a while but Better Termite ultimately solved it and our house is cockroach free. Cindy in particular, was quick to help out and made it pain free."
"I highly recommend this company for your home pest control. Their technicians are thorough and have prevented any unwanted problems from happening on our property. During our last treatment, Jasmine took care of our outdoor spider webs without us even asking. Last summer they removed a mud dauber's nest under our deck and above our patio door. That attention to detail speaks volumes. Thank you for taking care of us!"
"The team at Better Termite & Pest control are phenomenal! I feel like my family and my home are in good hands. Everyone I have come into contact with has been responsive, pleasant and professional. The price is right and the service is superb!"
"Joann is amazing! She always takes time to talk with me and check inside boxes. I so appreciate her!! I have been using Better Termite and Pest Management for over 20 years."
"I love Darren over at Better Termite. He is always so attentive and kind, and really goes, IMO, out of his way to do a fantastic job. And I am so happy that I had NO MOSQUITOES this summer in my backyard in spite of the fact that there is a drainage area right behind my house, and that is 100% because of Better Termites services."
"We had a bad cockroach problem - we knew it was bad because of all the baby cockroaches we spotted. It took a while but Better Termite ultimately solved it and our house is cockroach free. Cindy in particular, was quick to help out and made it pain free."
"I highly recommend this company for your home pest control. Their technicians are thorough and have prevented any unwanted problems from happening on our property. During our last treatment, Jasmine took care of our outdoor spider webs without us even asking. Last summer they removed a mud dauber's nest under our deck and above our patio door. That attention to detail speaks volumes. Thank you for taking care of us!"
"The team at Better Termite & Pest control are phenomenal! I feel like my family and my home are in good hands. Everyone I have come into contact with has been responsive, pleasant and professional. The price is right and the service is superb!"
"Joann is amazing! She always takes time to talk with me and check inside boxes. I so appreciate her!! I have been using Better Termite and Pest Management for over 20 years."
"I love Darren over at Better Termite. He is always so attentive and kind, and really goes, IMO, out of his way to do a fantastic job. And I am so happy that I had NO MOSQUITOES this summer in my backyard in spite of the fact that there is a drainage area right behind my house, and that is 100% because of Better Termites services."
How It Works
How Our Hyattsville Ant Control Works
A Licensed Tech Answers the Phone
Describe what you are seeing: big black ants on the porch, a line of tiny ants at the sink, or dirt piles on the basement slab. A licensed technician can usually name the likely species on the call and quote your plan before anyone drives out.
78-Point Home Inspection
In Hyattsville we spend extra time on porch roofs and columns, cellar sills on brick and fieldstone foundations, stumps and dead limbs in the yard, and the slab edges of newer townhomes. The goal is to find the nest, not just the trail.
Colony Treatment Ants Cannot Detect
Our non-repellent materials do not chase ants off. Workers walk through, pick up the product, and carry it home to the queens and brood. That is how a whole colony goes down instead of breaking into new nests behind your walls.
Foundation Band and Three Visits a Year
We keep a treated band along your foundation and come back 3 times a year, so the barrier stays fresh from the first warm weeks of spring through the fall rains.
Callbacks at No Extra Charge
If ants show up between visits, call us. We come back and treat again for free, as many times as it takes. There is no contract to sign, and you can cancel with 30 days notice.
Your Local Office
Ant Control Across Hyattsville, MD
From the Historic District and Castle Manor to University Hills, Queens Chapel Manor, the Arts District, and West Hyattsville. ZIP codes 20781, 20782, and 20783.
Get in Touch
Call Us
703-683-2000Email Us
info@bettertermite.comVisit Our Alexandria (Headquarters) Office
2647 Duke StreetAlexandria, VA 22314
Office Hours
- Mon, Tue, Thu7:30 AM – 7 PM
- Wed, Fri7:30 AM – 8 PM
- Sat, Sun9 AM – 6 PM
Good to Know
Frequently Asked Questions
Still have questions? A licensed local tech picks up at (703) 683-2000.
Our Free Callback Promise
See pests between scheduled visits? We come back and retreat at no extra cost — as many times as it takes. No binding contracts, cancel anytime with 30 days notice.
Other Services in Hyattsville
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Your Local Office
Hyattsville is served by our Alexandria, VA team.
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