Odorous House Ants in Your Non Odorous House
Odorous House Ant in a kitchen in Napa, CA
Odorous house ants are considered a nuisance pest like most ants. These ants are much more rare in homes than Argentine Ants, at least in the Bay Area and Napa Valley where we cover. That’s not say they aren’t out there. They can easily be misidentified as Argentine Ants but under close examination (or simply by crushing a few), you can tell the difference.
How to ID Odorous House Ants
If you want the nerdy scientific way of identifying them, there are a ton of sites you can look up which will tell you the exact length, the number of nodes, the number of clubs on the antennae and a bunch of other stuff 99% of people will never use to ID these ants. There are 4 things to looks for that will help distinguish them from Argentine Ants.
Trailing Behavior - Argentine Ants either have scouts or crawl in distinct trails. They don’t tend to wander too much, even the scouts. It’s hard to explain but they always seem to have a place to go. Odorous house ants on the other hand do have trails but also sometimes tend to wander around. They kind of remind me of my oldest daughter. She’s 8 now and (much like me at that age and not to lie even now sometimes at 41), she constantly gets distracted and just wanders with seemingly no care in the world.
Smell - If you’re bold enough to pick one up and crush it in your fingers, you’ll smell a pungent odor, thus the name of the ant. It can smell a little different to different people but it’s distinctive. Some people say it smells like rotten coconuts - whatever that smell like, others say blue cheese, others say rancid butter. I can’t really say I smell any of those things exactly but it does have a distinct smell when crushed and it’s noticeable.
Raised Abdomen When Disturbed - In my opinion, one of the most distinctive behaviors these ants display is a raised abdomen when disturbed. What that means is when you touch one or get close to one, it will raise it’s back side (called abdomen on insects). It almost looks like it’s getting ready to sting you even though it doesn’t have a stinger. It also kind of resembles a cat that raises it’s spine. If you look at other sources online you’ll see that they are erratic when disturbed in addition to raising the abdomen. I’m pretty sure all ants are erratic when disturbed though so that doesn’t really help!
Color and Size - Unfortunately these ants are very similar in size and color to Argentine Ants making it hard to ID them visually without really looking close. Their bodies are dark brown or black and they are about 1/16 to 1/8”. If you don’t feel like getting your ruler out, most people’s pinky finger tips are around 1/4” so basically half that size or better yet they are slightly bigger than the thickness of a quarter which is just under 1/16”.
How to treat Odorous House Ants
First off, these ants like a variety of food in houses including sweets, proteins and grease. If you can find a food source, remove it. If you don’t see an obvious food source use general cleanliness, wipe counters, don’t leave food out, etc. These ants can sometimes nest in the walls but usually will nest outside. You can try over the counter ant bait but be aware that the formula for these will sometimes kill the ants too quickly meaning they don’t take it to their nest and the colony doesn’t die. You can also try to spray but you need to also be careful with that as many over the counter sprays contain a repellant which is not a great option with ants. If you spray a repellant it can push the nest in other areas, sometimes it can even fracture a colony and the fractured portion will be “locked” inside your home!
A few other things to think about is to clean any fruit that has fallen if you have fruit trees. Also, these ants much like Argentine Ants will find and protect aphids and other insect that attack trees and create honeydew. If you see ants going up a tree in your back yard, you most likely have this happening. A simple solution is to get a sticky tree wrap and change it every month or so. This will prevent the ants from getting to a primary food source (honeydew from aphids) and will likely result in healthier trees because ants will also defend aphids from predators, so no ants - no protection - possibly no aphids. Here’s a link on Amazon for those sticky traps - https://a.co/d/avtKiK4
If you want to hand the baton off to a pro and live in the Fairfield, Napa or surrounding areas, give us a call!