Pharaoh Ant Facts & Information

Pharaoh ants likely entered your home or business as hitchhikers in infested grocery boxes, building materials, or used furniture. Once inside, they were drawn in by your home’s warmth, humidity, and food sources. Because they thrive indoors, they frequently travel along pipes and wiring to spread throughout homes and businesses.

Pharaoh ants are found all over the world due to global commerce. Because they thrive in warm, humid climates, they primarily live indoors inside heated buildings in temperate regions like homes, apartments, hospitals, and restaurants and nest in hidden spaces like wall voids, baseboards, and near plumbing. Because pharaoh ants rely on human structures to survive the winter in non-tropical climates, they generally do not nest or survive outdoors year-round unless you are in a highly subtropical or tropical region (which we are not!). That means, during the winter, they will either die off… or come inside.

Pharaoh ants are a persistent public health pest that contaminate food sources, spread harmful bacteria (like Salmonella and Streptococcus), and damage sterile medical materials. Their tiny size allows them to infiltrate nearly any space, and their tendency to split into multiple colonies makes them incredibly difficult to control. While they don’t generally bite or sting humans, they mechanically transmit diseases by carrying pathogens from unsanitary environments (like trash or decaying matter) to clean surfaces and food. Infections spread by these ants can be especially dangerous for newborns and individuals with weakened immune systems which is why pharaoh ants are notorious hazards in hospitals, nursing homes, and clinics. These facilities have everything pharaoh ants (and plenty of other pests) are looking for including shelter and water, but they can invade intravenous (IV) glucose solutions, damage sealed sterile dressings and even compromise medical equipment. In homes, restaurants, and commercial buildings, foraging pharaoh ants will eat almost anything including grease, sugars, and proteins. By crawling over and feeding on food supplies, they ruin products and spread filth, potentially causing food poisoning.

Preventing pharaoh ants requires cutting off their access to food and moisture and sealing entry points. Most importantly, never spray contact insecticides at or on them. These ants are notoriously difficult to eradicate because of a survival trait called “budding.” If a colony is threatened (e.g., by the use of standard household bug sprays), the ants will scatter and quickly establish several brand-new, independent colonies, turning a single localized issue into a building-wide infestation. Controlling pharaoh ants is best left to professionals since attempting to manage them with DIY products is HIGHLY likely to cause fragmentation of the colony creating multiple new infestations in your building.

We’re passionate about keeping ants out of your home or business because we live and work here – it’s our neighborhood, too. We’ve been keeping homes and businesses in Kentucky, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Tennessee safe from pests since 1972. OPC Pest Services has the experience you can trust.