Why Do I Have Fire Ants On My Austin Property?

Spring rains bring more than wildflowers to Austin lawns. Right behind the blooms come the fire ant mounds, popping up here, there, and everywhere, and if your yard is hosting them, it is because your yard is offering them something. Here is what that something is, and why getting rid of them is harder than it looks.

Fire Ant Identification

The name is earned. Fire ants deliver a venomous sting with a burn you do not forget, and they are common across the southern United States. You can pick them out by their dark reddish-brown bodies with copper-colored heads and a black rear, oval segmented bodies, six legs, two antennae, and a length between 1/8 and 3/8 of an inch.

They nest in soil, usually close to foundations and landscaping, building flattened, irregular mounds that run two to four square feet. A big mound can house as many as 400,000 fire ants.

Factors That May Be Attracting Fire Ants To Your Property

Fire ants go where survival is easy: food, water, and comfortable nesting ground. Around your place, that means garbage scraps, pet food stored outside, and oily or greasy foods they can haul back to the colony. They also eat other insects, and in dry weather they have been known to dig into potatoes growing underground.

Getting inside is not much of a challenge for them either. Fire ants slip through the smallest cracks and crevices, and locating and sealing every entry point they could use is close to impossible. That is a big part of why the professional route beats the caulk-gun-and-hope route.

Health Risks Associated With Fire Ants

Fire ants are aggressive and fiercely territorial. Disturb a nest even slightly and they respond in force. The sting is intensely painful and raises burning welts that often develop into pustules, and a single ant can sting multiple times. The venom can trigger serious allergic reactions in some people, and a mass attack, where dozens or hundreds sting at once, can be genuinely dangerous and needs medical attention.

That is why we tell people not to take on an active colony bare-handed. The stings are not worth it, and as the next section explains, the colony usually wins anyway.

Complications With Fire Ant Control

Beyond the stings, fire ants damage farm crops, building structures, and electrical components in air conditioners, circuit breakers, and farm equipment. And if you have already tried the DIY route, you have probably met the tactics that make them so hard to beat:

• Where there is one mound, more are coming. They populate an area, not a spot.
• They are astonishingly resilient, even in extreme conditions.
• Nests extend several feet beyond the mound, and a colony does not need its mound to survive. Mound activity tells you very little about colony activity.
• Colonies run to hundreds of thousands of ants. You are not out-spraying that with a jug from the hardware store.
• Disturb a nest and the survivors relocate fast, then rebuild.
• Multiple reproductive queens per colony make that relocation easy.
• Once inside a house, they nest in hidden spots: cabinet cavities, wall cracks, and underground beneath the foundation.

Every one of those is a reason DIY treatments knock the problem sideways instead of out.

The Long-Term Solution To Your Fire Ant Problem

Accurate Termite & Pest Control is family-owned and family-operated, and our licensed technicians are certified by the Texas Structural Pest Control Board with training every year on top of it. We serve the Austin Metro area with ongoing service that comes free of contracts and stipulations, because we would rather earn your next visit than lock you into it.

Fire ants are notoriously difficult to exterminate, and our fire ant treatments are built to win that fight for the long term, not just knock down this month’s mounds. Contact us today or call (512) 267-0812 for a free fire ant estimate.