Tag Archives: Ant control Eugene

How to Get Rid of Ants

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How can you get rid of ants is the first thing that comes to mind when facing an infestation. If you see ants in your home, there can likely be many more you are not seeing. An ant infestation: you hate to see it and definitely want to avoid it. Taking preventative measures, in addition to using expert ant control services, will keep these pesky invaders at bay and is how to rid your home of ants.

They’re the worst possible roommate. They don’t pay rent, they make a mess of your pantry, and they seem to multiply overnight. Yep, we’re talking about ants in Oregon, and how to get rid of them. It never fails: one ant enters your home, others follow, and all of a sudden an entire colony has settled in for the long term. Whether you’re dealing with carpenter ants, odorous house ants, or another species, ants won’t just go away on their own. And if you’re using a store-bought ant solution, you may be making your ant problem worse. But don’t worry – we’ve got some steps you can take to help prevent ants from entering your home, and some tried-and-true solutions for Oregon homeowners to get rid of ants for good.

Read More: What Are The Most Common Ants In Oregon?

Home Sweet Home

Ants love Oregon’s mild, moist climate. Carpenter ants scale lush trees to access your home via the roof, while odorous house ants find cracks in your foundation and simply slip inside. And once inside your home, ants quickly acclimate to the warmth, shelter, food, water, and comfort of your home. What starts as only a few scattered scout ants can seemingly overnight morph into a steady line of ants ready to take advantage of your warm walls and stocked pantry. But before you reach for that Raid or jar of cinnamon, take a deep breath – there are some better solutions to tackling an ant invasion.

The Truth About Raid

We’ll be straight with you: using store-bought ant killers is a bad idea. A close look at the label can tell us why. Most products labeled as “ant killers” are pyrethroid-based. Products with pyrethroid often fail to eliminate ants, and can often make your infestation worse. Because while pyrethroids kill ants quickly – well, kill a few ants quickly – the product never has time to travel back to the queen and colony. Consequently, a few worker ants are killed, but these are quickly replaced by a productive queen, hidden away from the treated area. Additionally, pyrethroid products are repellents, which means they push insects away. This actually encourages ants to move or divide the colony, resulting in ants “popping up” in new rooms or previously uninfested areas – or worse, they break apart to form satellite colonies.

What About Terro And Other DIY Ant Killers?

Good question! This might seem like the logical next step after Raid or other pyrethroid-based ant killers. But in an effort to make DIY products – like Terro – safer for the general public, these products come in a less potent concentration that pest management professionals are allowed to use. One example of this is Terro Liquid Ant Baits. This product, commonly available to homeowners, has a 5.4% Borax active ingredient. The counterpart used by licenced pest professionals is 10% Borax – almost twice as potent! It’s no wonder that, while Terro occasionally works, it often just leaves homeowners frustrated.

Read More: What Attracts Ants?

The Best Offense Is A Good Defense

Like the defensive line of the 1970’s Pittsburgh Steelers, a good defense can be a winning strategy to rid your home of ants. Sure, we’re talking about ways to preventative pest control to protect your home from ants, but the same principle applies. Here’s a couple of solid defensive strategies for protecting your home from ants:

  • Seal entry points: Check for cracks around windows, doors, and utility penetrations. You can seal or caulk around frames, providing extra security on the exterior of your home.
  • Remove food sources: Ants can find even the tiniest crumbs, so make sure all available food sources are cleaned up or stored in containers. This especially applies to pet food and dishes.
  • Trim outdoor plants: Cut back or remove plants that are touching the exterior of your home – these are basically ladders to your house for plants. It’s also a good idea to eliminate any bark mulch that touches your foundation.

Even with the best defensive strategies, you still might need to end on offense. Ant infestations don’t get rid of themselves, so at some point, you’ll need to call in the experts.

Our Comprehensive Ant Elimination System

At Bug Zapper, we’ve developed a powerful proprietary ant elimination system to eradicate ants. Our scientifically developed ant control products, combined with our meticulous application method, make pest-free living a reality. We leverage three strategies to ensure your home or office remains free of pests:

  • Time Delay: Our ant extermination products have a time delay, which allows worker ants to interact with the products and bring them back to the heart of the colony. By the time the products activate, they’ve been spread throughout the colony and to the queen, allowing us to effectively eliminate the entire colony at once.
  • Proper Application: Without the right application, even the best products won’t effectively eliminate ants. To ensure every service is as effective as possible, we provide extensive, hands-on training and ongoing education to every Bug Zapper technician. This allows us to consistently deliver exceptional results and outstanding customer service every step of the way.
  • Preventative Solutions: Our goal is to help you live pest-free year-round. After treating an ant infestation, our technicians will suggest preventive measures to help keep future ant colonies away from your resilience. We’ll take a close look at your home and landscaping to identify and close off potential entry points.

Once your ants are eliminated, we suggest a follow-up ant control treatment every two months to make sure new ant colonies never even get started inside your home.

New Ant Baits And Elimination Products

Over the last few years, ant control within homes has changed in major ways. Professional new ant baits and elimination products have allowed us to guarantee effective ant removal.

Research And Development

Ant bait formulation has been and continues to be the subject of substantial research, organized to determine what flavors and formulas are most readily accepted by foraging ants. These studies have led to a greater understanding of seasonal changes and needs within ant colonies. At Bug Zapper, we are able to use this research to supply the right bait at the right time to quickly eliminate ant colonies with menial product exposure to home occupants.

Streamlined And Effective Ant Control

New technology only requires a mere 20 percent of the foraging colony to pick up and transport ant killing ingredients back to the remaining 80 percent of the colony. This streamlined form of ant control has never been so effective. In fact, ants cannot detect this new elimination method, and a delayed effect allows them to transport the product deep inside the colony before the entire colony – including the queen – is killed. Rather than acting as a band-aid to the problem by simply repelling ants, these innovative new products kill the whole ant colony within a few days.

Ant Control In Oregon: Our Guarantee

Because our Bug Zapper technicians use the best grade commercial products to protect your home, children, and pets from ant invasion, you can be sure that our method will work. Unlike box store products that never seem to do any good, our professional control methods are so effective that we guarantee our ant control treatments 100% of the time.

Contact us today to learn more about our permanent ant elimination service.

If you are done with ants, then contact us here or call to join our ant free family.

5 Star Pest Control Service available in Albany, Ashland, Corvallis, Eugene, Grants Pass, McMinnville, Medford, Newberg, Roseburg, Salem, Sherwood, Wilsonville, Woodburn, Tigard, Tualatin and surrounding areas.

Ask The Bug Man Eugene Pest Questions Answered

Ask The Bug Man Eugene

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Got Pests? Already tried do-it-yourself home remedies without results? Then you probably have questions. More than likely it’s the info you don’t have that is blocking your success with those pesky pests. Here are ready answers to the most frequent questions people want to ask the bug man Eugene answers about pest control. And if you still need info, check out our commitment free pro help from an expert feature where you can ask an expert to get answers fast.

Ask The Bug Man Eugene Pro Gives Answers

When it comes to pests in Eugene and Springfield, Lane county hosts some extra tough pests. But don’t get worried, we can help you win against even the toughest pests. Whether you are fighting a relentless infestation of bed bugs, mice or rats, here are the answers you need to BEAT Eugene pests.

What Is The Toughest Pest To Get Rid Of In Eugene?

Bed Bugs! There is a quickly increasing epidemic of Bed Bugs in Eugene and surrounding areas. The cleanliness of the home seems to be irrelevant to the probability of contracting a bed bug infestation.

bed bug in a bag

If you get bed bugs, expect them to turn your life upside down until they are gone. More than any other pest, bed bugs shatter the peace of mind and the good health of homeowners. Bed beds pose the following major risks when contracted:

  1. Prevent healthy sleep patterns
  2. Foster distrust since others shun like a lepper anyone with bed bugs
  3. Hamper earning potential since coworkers and bosses fear being exposed to the spread of bed bugs at work

General public unfamiliarity with bed bugs and vast online misinformation surrounding the subject lead to certain homeowner frustrations. Add on largely ineffective homeowner grade products available and you’re sure to be headed towards a headache.

Bed bugs are the one pest that despite any amount of online research, homeowners are almost certain to fail at eliminating without professional help. Generally, we find that the use of noncommercial bed bug products makes a bed bug infestation worse by pushing the bugs into additional rooms of the home and compounding the infestation level.

For more questions about how to get rid of bed bugs, click here to ask our expert. 

Did I Cause The Pest Infestation?

Upon identification of a rat, bed bug, boxelder beetle or other pest infestation by our field technicians, the next question most homeowners ask is if they caused the infestation.

While certain areas of town are more at risk to certain pest types, our answer is generally no. The real answer to the causal question requires a more careful look at “conducive conditions.” Certain neighboring and on-site factors can dramatically influence the risk of infestation but might not cause a pest problem.

Chicken Coop Rat Attractant
What Came First The Chicken Or The Rat?

One example given a lot of recent press in Eugene is the influence chicken coops have on rat populations within a neighborhood. Just because your neighbor has a chicken coop, doesn’t mean they caused a rat infestation at your home (although the constant food supply within a chicken coop certainly could attract rats to your neighborhood.)

While most pest infestations are not caused by homeowners or even malicious neighbors, conducive conditions can play a big roll in a dramatic pest takeover of your home. For additional info about conducive conditions and rats see our rat repellant article by clicking here.

If you still have questions about factors that might be causing a pest infestation, just ask the bug man Eugene help fast – text us at 541-636-0146.

I’ve already sealed up my home and rats are still getting inside. HOW?

Eugene residents are at war with rats and sometimes it seems like rats have an unfair advantage. The fact is rats are amazing acrobats and can climb trees, walk on power lines and even scurry right up the side of a house with many types of siding. They also fit through tiny holes smaller than a dime. Rats swim up sewer lines and scurry down pipes to get inside homes.

ask the bug man eugene ratMost homeowner attempts at preventing rodent entry are just not extensive or tough enough to keep rats out of a home. Try sealing a hole with expanding foam and by the next day rats will likely have chewed their way right back inside.

Effective rodent exclusion generally requires specialty carpenter expertise with a background in rodent removal tactics. Overlooked entry points such as crawl space doors, foundation vents, conduit pipes, and roof joints are among the most common ways rats get around homeowner attempts at blocking entry.

If you have already sealed up entry points and the rodents still keep getting into your home, then we can help. Call us to ask how! 541-636-0146

Do you still have questions about Eugene pests? Ask the bug man Eugene pro help available at 541-636-0146. 

Locally owned for fast, exceptional service.

5 Star Pest Control Service available in Albany, Ashland, Coos Bay, Corvallis, Eugene, Grants Pass, McMinnville, Medford, Newberg, Roseburg, Salem, Sherwood, Wilsonville, Woodburn, Tigard, Tualatin, and surrounding areas.

Eugene Exterminator

Carpenter Ant Survival Needs

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What You Need To Know About Carpenter Ant Infestation

In our line of work, we see a variety of pest-related problems that can develop in the average home, but some of the most potentially destructive pests are Carpenter Ants.  While we’re professionals in the treatment of these infestations, heading off a problem before it can begin is one of the best forms of pest control there is.  We’ve decided to offer some tips on how to do that, in the hope that it can help you avoid an infestation altogether.  The damage that can be done by Carpenter Ants is extensive, and they can be tricky to treat.  With a few preventative measures early on, before there is a problem, you can avoid having to make costly repairs or deal with an infestation of these small pests in the future.  If you’ve already had an infestation that has been treated, preventative measures can (and should) be followed in order to reduce the chance of re-infestation.  First, let’s take a look at Carpenter Ant survival needs.

Carpenter Ant survival needs
This guy invites his entire family to your house for dinner. He’s got around 2,500 siblings. You don’t want to know how many cousins he has.

Types Of Carpenter Ants

In order to understand how to prevent Carpenter Ants from making a homestead out of your beams and basements, a little information about what Carpenter Ants need is in order.  It’s good to know why they often choose our homes, and how they use our structures to their benefit.

The Pacific Northwest is home to nearly a dozen species of Carpenter Ant (genus Camponotus), but most can be treated in the same manner.  Camponotus pennsylvanicus, or the Black Carpenter Ant, is by far the most prevalent type of Carpenter ant found at residences in the United States, but it is only one of a thousand different species.  In the Pacific Northwest, you’re very likely to encounter C. modoc, one of the larger species of Carpenter Ants.

Oregon Carpenter Ants
Camponotus Pennsylvanicus                               
Oregon Carpenter Ants
Camponotus Modoc

Carpenter Ant Survival Needs

As “social” insects, Carpenter Ants  form colonies that include vast numbers of individual ants, and in order to format and house these colonies, Carpenter Ants specialize in building complex nests.  These nests are less like a singular home and more like an ant neighborhood.  This is a part of their life cycle, and begins just after the initial, seasonal “swarm.”  The swarm is an emergence of reproductives (sexually mature ants) from satellite colonies.  Typically occurring in early Spring when the weather is warm and conducively humid for egg-laying, the winged females and males take flight and begin a mating process.  This is sometimes also referred to as the “honeymoon phase”, or “nuptial flight”.  This seasonal onrush of adults can be very large and intimidating, and there’s a good chance you’ve seen it in years past.  To residents who live in the wooded areas and neighborhoods in which Carpenter Ants proliferate, the ants are well-known for coming out en masse, and their numbers can seem as if they’re absolutely everywhere for a short while.  This winged swarm event is the major turning point in the Carpenter Ant life-cycle, when new nests are to be founded and colonies begun.

Once mating has concluded, the males die and the females begin seeking out potential locations to establish a parent colony.  When a suitable habitat is found, the female, now a queen, will lose her wings and begin building the initial nest, for which she will be the matriarch.  She’ll lay her eggs (a little less than two dozen), and take on the role of a parent, protecting the eggs until the larvae emerge, and then taking care of the young.  These will be workers, physiologically, and they will then take on the task of nurturing more eggs as she lays them.  The parental group continues in this fashion until the colony grows in size, foraging out into the habitat for food and beginning the process of establishing satellite colonies, from which the entire process will again initiate with a nuptial flight at the right time of year.

A carpenter ant queen (C. crispulus)
Winged queen, Camponotus crispulus

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Call or Text 541-636-0146 or contact us here to schedule today.

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Ant Control In Eugene – Guaranteed Elimination

Ants, Eugene Ant Control, Eugene Pest Control, Lane County Pest Control,

Ants: Little Insects, BIG Problems

With incessant little ants invading your home and kitchen you night ask if eliminating them is even possible.  Perhaps you have already sprayed them a dozen times with Windex, oven cleaner, bleach or whatever other kitchen sprays were available under your sink (not the best idea).  You’ve probably tried a spray pesticide from the store, in the hopes of waging some serious ant control in Eugene, but that only worked temporarily and the ants just keep coming back.

ants everywhere - ant control in Eugene

 

Ants are good at that.  In fact, that’s business-as-usual for ants.  They just keep coming.  Cut them off, and they go around.  Block an entry, they find another.  Well, when all seems bleak let me offer some real hope for my Lane Country residents.  Ant control is our specialty, and we have a variety of methods for dealing with them.

The Solution To Ants

Over the last few years ant control within homes has changed in big ways. Professional new ant baits and elimination products have allowed us to guarantee effective ant removal. Here is how we do it:

First, ant bait formulation has been and continues to be the subject of substantial research organized to determine what flavors and formulas are most readily accepted by foraging ants. These studies have lead to greater understanding regarding seasonal changes and needs within ant colonies. Now we are able to use this research to supply the right bait at the right time to quickly eliminate ant colonies with minimal product exposure to home occupants.

Ant Feeding

Second, new technology allows ant killing ingredients to be picked up by the mere 20 percent of the foraging colony and transported back to infect the 80 percent of the colony that before remained safe from exposure. Ant control in Eugene has never been so streamlined and effective.  New technology contacts foraging ants undetected and then a delayed effect allows them to transport the products deep inside the colony before the whole colony including the ant queen is killed. Rather than act as a band-aid to the problem by merely repelling foraging ants, the innovative new products we use kill the whole ant colony within a few days.

Ant Control in Eugene – Our Guarantee

Ant Control - exterior

No kidding, our system works. So well in fact that we guarantee it 100 percent. No questions asked. Try out our no contract service and see for yourself why Bug Zapper Pest Control rates TOP in customer satisfaction reviews. 

Bug Zapper is always quick on responses to service requests. NO job is ever too small for these guys. They went above and beyond for our business. We no longer have nasty cobwebs all over and the ants have disappeared. I highly recommend their services.
Shani Bunnell – Operations Manager Umpqua Business Center.

We have lived in this house for 12 years and for the first time, we have no ants! Were it not for the work of your technician, ants would still be making themselves comfortable both inside and outside our home. In addition, your technician is always pleasant, courteous, efficient and a pleasure to see coming down the driveway.  —  Gary

Learn more about how our permanent ant elimination service works.

If you are tired or ants, then don’t mess around. Contact us here or call 541-636-0146 to join our family and experience…

Bug Zapper’s Ant and Pest Elimination Service.

Locally owned for fast, exceptional service.

5 Star Ant Control Service available in Albany, Ashland, Corvallis, Eugene, Grants Pass, McMinnville, Medford, Newberg, Roseburg, Salem, Sherwood, Wilsonville, Woodburn, Tigard, Tualatin and surrounding areas.

Call/Text 541-636-0146

For Information Today!

#1 Oregon Pest Control Service