Ants in Schaumburg, IL? Bait the Trail, Don't Spray

• WHAT YOU SEE IN SCHAUMBURG

Schaumburg's housing mostly dates to the 1970s and 80s, split-levels and ranch subdivisions with forty or fifty years of tree growth around them. You see ants on the kitchen counter or trailing along a windowsill, usually starting in spring and building through summer. It can look like a lot of ants at once, especially odorous house ants, which move as a visible trail rather than one or two scouts.

• WHAT WE SEE

The counter is the end of the trail, not the source; the colony is almost always outside, in mulch, under a slab edge, or at a foundation gap that has had decades to open up in a house this age. Odorous house ants and Argentine ants both split into multiple colonies when threatened, which is exactly what happens if the trail gets sprayed instead of baited. We trace the trail back to the entry point on the foundation before we treat anything.

• HOW WE FIX IT

Bait on the trail, not a spray on the counter; the point is for workers to carry it back to the colony, which is the only way to reach the queen. We seal the entry gap at the foundation and treat the exterior perimeter on the quarterly visit, which is what keeps a new trail from starting. Nothing goes on your counters or in the middle of the kitchen floor.

• WHEN THEY SHOW UP

Ant activity starts as the ground warms in spring and runs through summer, the same pattern as most of the inner-ring suburbs. A Schaumburg house from the 1970s or 80s has had longer for small foundation gaps to open than a newer house would, which is part of why this is one of the more common calls in town.