Advantage Pest Control
Welcome to Advantage Pest Control, one of the leading carpenter ant, bedbug, termite & mice specialists serving the Greater Toronto Area. We are proud to be a Canadian family owned and operated company offering professional pest control and prevention services.
HEAD OFFICE
1261 Kennedy Rd Unit #5
Scarborough, ON M1P 2L4
Contact Info
Ants
Our Services
- Integrated treatments using bait, liquid residual insecticide spray and/or dust combined with exclusion and prevention methods.
- Interior and exterior treatments
- Part of our Home Protection Plan – an annual pest control program that protects you from over 15 of the most common household pests including carpenter ants, pharaoh ants, and pavement ants.
Our Guarantee
- Our residential ant control services come with a 1 year guarantee on the interior of your home.
- If the ants are still present within a year after the initial treatment period, we will come back to service your home again at no additional charge. That is our commitment to you.
- If you would like for us to service the exterior of your home again and reapply a protective barrier within 1 year of your initial treatment, we will come back to service the exterior of your home at a reduced rate.
“We had huge black ants crawling all over our kitchen. My wife thought they were coming out of everywhere and my daughter was scared of the ones with wings. I called Paolo when I couldn’t stand my two ladies being upset anymore. Paolo explained everything very thoroughly, especially in relation to how the chemicals would affect my family. He came and did a full treatment of our entire home, knowing that they took their time to eliminate all of the places these things could be made me feel better about the whole thing. Right away we noticed a difference in the number of ants we saw and progressively over the next few weeks they kept disappearing until finally no more ants! I really appreciate everything Paolo and his team did to help our family.”
– Derrick, Thornhill
Our Commitment to the Environment
- We love and respect ants. On the exterior of the home they are naturally occurring species with beneficial impact on our communities. Therefore we practice environmentally responsible procedures with all our treatments.
- As such, our exterior ant control treatments are for over-population control and prevention of interior infestation, not to eliminate every last ant in existence. That would simply be unrealistic and unsafe.
- However, once these ants, most especially carpenter ants, reach the interior of a house, they can cause serious structural damage over a prolonged period of time. That is why an integrated pest management approach for control and prevention is always recommended.
Residential Services
Interior Services
No one wants to have ants inside their home. In addition to the stress that they emotionally can cause the homeowner, as a wood-boring pest, they can cause serious damage structurally to a home. Whether you have a detached, semi-detached, apartment or condominium unit, we have a program that will be suited to you.
Exterior Services
Exterior services are available to protect foundations and other structural elements of your property. There can be multiple carpenter ant nests in gardens, wood piles and backyards.
Commercial Services
Restaurants
Ants can be a tough pest to battle in restaurants. Firstly, because of the food element, it can be very attractive for ants to infest a restaurant. This is unsightly and can create a negative image to potential customers. Secondly, wood boring insects like carpenter ants can be detrimental to the structure of any building
Industrial Buildings
Ants can be a frequent visitor in businesses that have shipments or receive packages.
Home Protection Plan
Year-Round Protection
The Home Protection Plan gives you annual protection against more than 15 of the most common household pests including carpenter ants. It also includes seasonal pests, such as wasps and hornets, as well as year-round pests such as mice and rats.
Types of Ants
Worker Ants
Workers are female ants that cannot reproduce. These are the majority of the ants inside a colony. Of these very few actually venture outside of the colony looking for food. This means that the number of ants actually seen outside of the nest is only 5% of the colony. These are typically the older workers. The remaining workers are younger in age and specialize in food relating, food storage, caring for the young stages of development (i.e. larvae) and nest maintenance.
Polymorphic ants divide their workers into three grounds. These are designated by the size of the ant. The smallest ants tend to the young. Medium ants gather food and do light nest maintenance. The largest form do heavy housekeeping chores and nest defense. Dimorphic ants divide their workers into two types of workers: small and large. The smallest ants tend to the brood of larvae and the queen while the larger ants take care of nest maintenance, food, and nest defense. Workers in monomorphic ant colonies are given their tasks by age. They perform all duties in the nest at different phases of their lives.
Male Ants
The male’s eyes are larger thus he can see the queen better. His sole purpose is to mate with the queen. He dies within two weeks after mating. He is winged but he cannot fly very well and often mating occurs on the ground as is the case with Pharaoh Ants.
Queen Ants
The queen is usually the largest individual in the colony. Her first and most important duty is to find a good nesting location. Many species of ants have several colonies (called satellite colonies). This includes pharaoh ants, little black ants, crazy ants and pavement ants. The queen mates only once but continues to produce offspring until she dies. In some species (predominately the pharaoh ant) feeding the larvae in a special way will cause her to become a queen.
Ant Species in Toronto
Different species of ants may differ in size classes of their workers. Many ant species including pharaoh ants are monomorphic. This means they only have one size. Big-headed ants are dimorphic and have two sizes. Ants that have several different sizes are polymorphic including carpenter ants and fire ants.
Several types of ants are prominent in Toronto and the surrounding GTA including:
- Carpenter Ants
- Fire Ants
- Pharaoh Ants
- Pavement Ants
We offer comprehensive ant control programs, integrated pest management approaches and specialized ant elimination methods. Call 416-840-4040 to speak to one of our specialists today.