People ring us in March convinced they have a new ant problem. They usually do not. They have the same colony that was outside in November, and something has changed about the house or the weather that made walking inside worth the trip. Around Albany Creek the pattern repeats closely enough that you can nearly set a diary by it, and once you know which species you are looking at, you know which part of the building let it in.
Why this pocket in particular
Albany Creek sits on an edge. Creek flats on one side, the bushland at Bunyaville on the other, and a lot of slab on ground housing in between. That edge is why the ant and the termite pressure here is what it is. Coastal browns push up through the slab in the dry months looking for moisture, and a wet week brings everything else in off the reserve. Eatons Hill, Bridgeman Downs, Cashmere and McDowall all behave the same way. If you have been through a summer here, you already know the shape of it.
| Species | J | F | M | A | M | J | J | A | S | O | N | D |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coastal brown ant Fine soil heaped at slab joins, paver edges and the base of the wall | January: active | February: active | March: quiet | April: quiet | May: quiet | June: quiet | July: quiet | August: quiet | September: active | October: active | November: peak activity | December: active |
| Black house ant Trails to anything sweet, and a nest that has flooded outside | January: peak activity | February: active | March: active | April: quiet | May: quiet | June: quiet | July: quiet | August: quiet | September: quiet | October: quiet | November: active | December: active |
| White footed house ant Long persistent runs along a skirting from a wall cavity harbourage | January: quiet | February: active | March: peak activity | April: active | May: active | June: quiet | July: quiet | August: quiet | September: quiet | October: quiet | November: quiet | December: quiet |
| Argentine ant Indoors in the cool months, several nests behaving as one colony | January: quiet | February: quiet | March: active | April: active | May: peak activity | June: active | July: active | August: active | September: quiet | October: quiet | November: quiet | December: quiet |
Spring, and the fine soil piles
From about September the coastal brown ant starts turning up as small heaps of fine soil at a paver edge, a slab join or the base of a wall. That soil is spoil. It is being carried up from a nest under the slab, and it means the ant has found a route through the ground into the building envelope. Sweeping the pile away does nothing, because the pile is a symptom. What matters is where it is emerging, and whether the slab edge at that point is visible, sealed and clear of garden bed.
This is the species most often treated three times by three different operators. A surface spray kills the workers on the paving and leaves a colony that can run to tens of thousands underneath it. It has to be baited, and the route has to be closed, or you are buying the same job again in six weeks.
The wet, and the kitchen invasion
From late November through February the black house ant arrives, and it arrives fast. Their nests are outside, often under a paver or in a retaining wall, and a storm run floods them. The colony moves what it can to the driest place it knows about, which is the wall cavity of your house, and then trails to whatever is sweet. If you get ants within a day of heavy rain, that is what has happened, and it will usually settle once the ground dries out. Whether it comes back the next storm depends entirely on whether the entry point is still open.
Autumn, and the ones that stay
White footed house ants peak around March. They are the long, persistent, single file runs along a skirting board that seem to go on for weeks, and they are the ones people give up on. Their harbourage is usually inside the wall cavity or the roof void rather than outside, so the treatment is different again: gel and bait at the run, not a band around the house. Argentine ants take over through the cool months and behave as one enormous colony across several yards, which is why a job that only treats your side of the fence tends to disappoint.
The one that is not an ant
Between about October and February you will see flying insects around a light after a warm, still, humid evening. If the wings are all the same length and they drop off in a pile on the windowsill, that is a termite alate, not a flying ant. Ant wings are two different lengths and ants have a pinched waist. This is worth ten seconds of looking, because one of those two things is a nuisance and the other is a structural problem. If you find a pile of equal length wings inside, ring somebody the same week.
What to do with all this
- Note the month and where you first saw them. Both are diagnostic.
- Do not spray a trail before an inspection. It scatters the run and hides the route we would have followed.
- Drop garden beds and mulch back below the slab edge. It is the single most useful thing a homeowner can do here.
- Check your weep holes are open. A rendered over weep hole is a wet wall with a door in it.
- If the trail comes back within a month of a treatment, the nest was not treated. Say so when you ring.
Most northside houses want a full home treatment once a year, late winter or early spring, before the first warm run. Houses backing onto a reserve or a creek usually want it twice. That is not an upsell, it is the calendar.