Home Maintenance Monday 4/21/25: Check In & Around Your Home For These Common Springtime PESTS!

Spring brings the return of the sun and all of the blooming and greening that comes along with it. Hopefully you've had some time to engage your spring cleaning checklist!

This week I want you to take a look around your home and garden to check for and identify any pests that should be addressed. Here are some common pests that might show up in your home during spring.

Carpenter Ants:

One of the most common springtime household pests are Carpenter ants. In their search for food and shelter, they can show up in new locations and they have the ability to damage and even destroy your home’s structure. Here's how to look for them in your home. Carpenter ants chew through wood structures and, as a part of the process of what they do, they create "Frass" a saw-dust substance that they remove from their nesting areas via "Kick-out holes". You can search your home for Kick-out holes and piles of Frass beneath them in order to determine if you have carpenter ants. You can also listen for sounds... I have lived in a home with carpenter ants before and you may be able to hear them chewing on the wood in your home if you listen carefully enough. If carpenter ants progress far enough they can create wood that sounds hollow when you tap on it. You can also look for any visible ants or ant trails. If you find carpenter ants in or around your home, I highly suggest bringing in a professional to evaluate the damage and remove the infestation. This is a pest that is best to find and stop early!

Pavement Ants:

Sometimes referred to interchangeably as "Sugar Ants", these are the smaller variety of ants that can show up in a home and make themselves a nuisance to home owners. Although their presence is less detrimental to the structure of the home, they can still be annoying to deal with. These ants also show up in search of food and water, if you want to prevent them it can be helpful to keep open food and water sources around your home at a minimum. When we have had personal issues with roving sugar ants in our home, we have had to place our cat's food dish within a tray of water to prevent them from reaching this food source. (But this also creates a water source!) My family has personally used ant traps & ant poison with much success against sugar ants, but we have also had to call in a professional to help us with them in the past when there was a significant nest under our home. If what you're doing isn't working don't be afraid to call in the professionals!

Houseflies & Moths:

These flying creatures can make their way into your home when a door or window is left open. Unfortunately, one of the only ways to prevent having these insects flying around in your home is to keep windows and door shut! These flying pests prove that if you want to let the fresh air in, you better have some screening in place. If you want to remove these pests there are some different traps that you can use, but another regularly unwanted house guest might be another answer to this problem…

Spiders:

While I tend to think of the fall as "Spider Time", some people notice an influx of spiders in there home in the spring months! Like ants, spiders also make entries into our homes in search of food; if you have a population of spiders that are surviving and thriving in your home, this may be an indication of other pests surviving in your home. If you find spiders in your home and no other bugs, thank the spiders! If you find the occasional dead spider in your home, there might not be enough food for them there. (Hooray!)

Whatever your Springtime pest battle is, I hope that the battle is easily won this year! If the pest you deal with in your home hasn’t been mentioned here yet, I’d love to hear about it and see what kinds of troubleshooting tools I can come up with! 503-312-5234

Cut tulips beautifully arranged in a vase and on a kitchen counter. No pests in sight here!

Resource:

"Carpenter Ants Removal & Control" website article found at: https://www.pnwpestcontrol.com/ants/?gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAADcCgESI-3iTxtEwZvU91_fQ20w6C&gclid=Cj0KCQjw2ZfABhDBARIsAHFTxGyK_BhL5SRtTonaM2oV2VmcSIekxUnfoK3QfgAntNWNuPIWrgwKPwsaAsNyEALw_wcB