Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
Michael Wienecke
Hey, so today we’re going to talk about ants. We have millions of different ants, especially, you know, here in Alabama, we got fire ants, we got big headed ants, we’ve got carpenter ants, we’ve got Pharaoh ants, we’ve got Argentine ants, and the list goes on and on. Different Different states have different ants, I’ll say one thing that we I think we can all agree on is the ants are extremely annoying, getting into your kitchen crawling through your food, potentially, you know, with fire ants, the biting, you know, kids playing in playgrounds falling into an ant bed is just no fun for anybody.
Travis McGowin
Yeah, and, you know, I’ve always, I always say this to a lot of my customers that asked me about ants, and you know, and what we can do about them and that sort of thing. And I’m always very thankful that one ant colony doesn’t like the next ant colony, you know, view each other’s enemies, because if ants all, you know, kind of gelled together, and we’re friendly with each other, I really feel like they would take over the world.
Michael Wienecke
We’d have quite a mutiny on mutiny on our hands,
Travis McGowin
maybe that’s a good horror movie idea, I don’t know. But they literally I think that they could pull their resources and take over the world. I mean, you look at the you look at a fire and population that he guard, you know, here in the local area. And it’s like, you know, overnight, almost some of my customers complain that they that they just take over the yard, there’s mountains everywhere. You know, and like you mentioned, case in point, you know, one of your children, one of your pets get into a fire ant mound, I mean, it’s painful. I mean, my brother was exposed to fire ants when he was just a little kid. And you know, was was eaten up pretty good balm, and is still as an adult to this day allergic to?
Michael Wienecke
Well, I’ll just go into some ways that you can help prevent ants, especially the non biting con more you Argentine favorite brands, the ones that are getting into your kitchen, kind of looking for that sweet and syrupy stuff in the house. One of the the main issues we see is just an overloaded trash can, right up against the house, you know, you are bound and determined to get ants in your home, if you have a trash can, that’s full of say you had a big party or something like that. And it’s just full of trash cake, all that kind of sweetness that they want. If it’s right up against the house, 100% they’re going to be coming in your house right after they get done trying to find food in that trash can.
Travis McGowin
Oh, yeah, that goes for a lot of insects, but especially for answers that eliminating or taking away their, their food source or whatever it is that they’re foraging for, always makes a huge difference. Not only, you know, with garbage cans, but I mean even in just general cleanliness. I mean, we all have, you know, between you and I, we have kids, crumbs get everywhere. You know, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been in someone’s house doing an inspection, or treating for bugs. And you go and like I said, I always go back to kids, because kids don’t think about it and go in a kid’s room. And there’s like candy wrappers and plates with food scrap on it, I mean, under the bed or hidden beside the wall, because I just didn’t want to get up and throw it away. And then now they have an ant problem.
Michael Wienecke
It’s funny you say that, because the the most overlooked area in a kitchen that I see is the stove, when we pull out the stove to do our inspection, whether it’s ants, roaches, whatever it could be, that is the that is the place that all that food and stuff gets behind, and you’d never see it again until you pull it out.
Travis McGowin
I get it, I get it, because stoves are heavy. For at face value at surface value, you know, I mean, they appear clean, you clean the top of the stove top off, you know, occasionally when you’re done cooking, or you clean the front of the stovetop or something may have splattered on it. But you know, nobody pulls the stove out to clean it from the sides of the backs. I mean, I get that, but at the same time, that’s a prime location for them to have a food source,
Michael Wienecke
of course, and some other ways of kind of eliminating them being able to get into your house is going to always be cutting those branches away, you don’t want them touching, you know, right against the house, our rule of thumb is anywhere from a foot to three feet away from the house. Because that’s just going to kind of give them an avenue and even if you’ve treated with your own product, or you’ve called a company, they’re going to be able to bypass that product by you know, common over that tree crape myrtle, whatever it may be and getting right into your home. And another thing I’ll say is that, you know, a lot of people think they can seal ants out of their house. And that is just not possible. You’ve got weep holes in your brick. You’ve got missing spots in your mortar. You know, Vance in your crawlspace I mean, if they weren’t in that house, they’re gonna get in that house.
Travis McGowin
Yeah, most certainly they in like you said if you give them a way to circumvent where the treatment is placed, you know, they will certainly find it and they will certainly use that but so we kind of talked about ways to eliminate them or to prevent them from being attracted coming into your house, but what about the yard? What about, you know, people whose yards I know here, you know where we live, there’s there’s all kinds of problems with them invading and especially like we said fire ants invading the yard. But what’s something that they can do or that we can do for them?
Michael Wienecke
Yeah, so, you know, they can, they can treat the fire ants, you know, kind of a spot treatment with stuff that they can buy kind of over the counter our treatment, we do a full fire fire, I’m sorry, a full yard treatment for fire ants. It lasts up to a year and we guarantee that for a year, so if we do your treatment, and you’re not, you’re seeing a fire ant bed pop up, we’ll come right back out for your charge and take care of that up to a year.
Travis McGowin
Definitely. And for those individuals who have had that treatment done, I’ve had nothing but good feedback given in reference to that,
Michael Wienecke
oh, yeah, I did it personally on my own house and we’re going to you’re strong without fire ants. You know, and then other treatments for other ants are different, you know, regular, you know, Argentine Pharaoh ants, you know, that can just be a liquid treatment or a biting treatment around the around the outside of the house.
Travis McGowin
Definitely. Well, you know, just as long as all the listeners know that you call us and we hear a pesquisa we can handle that for you.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
