The short answer
If you live in Tequesta or Jupiter and there's a line of tiny ants on the counter, by the sink or around the dog bowl, you're not alone. These are almost always ghost ants or white-footed ants. Both are tiny, both love sugar, and both nest outside and walk in. And both get worse when you hit them with a can of spray from the store.
The fix is to go after where they live, not just the ones you can see.
Ghost ants: the ones you can barely see
Ghost ants are about as small as ants get. The head is dark and the rest of the body is pale, almost clear, so on a white counter they seem to disappear. That's where the name comes from. You usually notice them because something is moving, not because you can see the ant.
They go after sweets and grease. Think a drop of juice, a cereal bowl in the sink, the sugar bowl, or a hummingbird feeder by the lanai. Inside, they show up in kitchens and bathrooms, along baseboards and around outlets. Outside, they nest in mulch, under pavers, in potted plants and in the gaps of a palm tree.
Here's the part that matters. A ghost ant colony has lots of queens. When the colony gets stressed, a group can pack up and start a new nest somewhere else. That's why a house can go from one trail to four.
White-footed ants: the ones on the outside walls
White-footed ants are a little bigger, black or dark brown, with light colored feet. If you look close you can see the pale feet. They showed up in South Florida in the 1980s and spread up the coast, and now they're one of the most common ants around homes here.
They don't sting and they don't damage the house. The problem is the numbers. Their colonies can get huge and spread across a whole yard, with nests in trees, palms, leaf litter, roof eaves and wall voids. You'll see long trails running up the outside walls, along the edge of the roof, and down branches that touch the house. Then they find a gap around a window or a light fixture and come inside.
Why the spray makes it worse
Most people do the same thing the first time. They spray the trail, wipe up the dead ants, and feel good about it. Two days later the ants are back, sometimes in a new room.
That spray kills the few workers out on the counter. The nest, the queens and the rest of the colony are fine. With ghost ants, the stress can split the colony into more nests. So you didn't solve it, you spread it.
One trail or a real problem?
- A few ants after you left food out. Clean it up and keep an eye on it. That can happen to anyone in Florida.
- A trail that keeps coming back to the same spot. There's a nest nearby, often outside the wall or in a plant by the door, and it needs treatment.
- Ants in more than one room, or trails on the outside walls and roofline. That's a big colony, usually white-footed ants, and spraying the inside won't touch it.
How we get rid of them
Since these ants nest outside and walk in, most of the work happens outside. We treat around the outside of the home, the landscaping against the walls, and the spots where ants trail and get in, so they get stopped at the edge of the property. Inside, we treat where they actually show up, like kitchens, bathrooms and baseboards. Our techs tell you what they're treating and why before they leave.
Ants are one of the most common reasons people call us. One customer told us that after more than four years with Frontline they haven't seen one ant in the house. In Florida, that says a lot.
What you can do today
- Wipe counters and rinse dishes before bed. Sticky spots are what they're after.
- Keep sugar, cereal, honey and pet food in sealed containers. Don't leave the dog bowl full overnight.
- Trim shrubs, vines and tree branches back so they don't touch the walls or the roof. Branches are a highway for white-footed ants.
- Pull mulch back a few inches from the foundation.
- Check potted plants near doors and on the lanai. They're a favorite spot for ghost ant nests.
- Skip the store-bought spray on the trail. Wipe it up with soapy water and give us a call.
None of this replaces treatment, but it makes the house a lot less interesting to ants.
Ants in your town
We're based at 244 Country Club Drive in Tequesta and take care of homes all over the area. Find your town: Tequesta, Jupiter, Jupiter Farms, Jupiter Inlet Colony, Jupiter Island, Hobe Sound, Juno Beach, North Palm Beach and Palm Beach Gardens. Fire ants in the lawn are a different ant, covered on our pest control page. Big roaches after a storm? Read why roaches show up after it rains.
Ant facts on this page line up with the University of Florida IFAS Featured Creatures guides on the ghost ant and the white-footed ant.
