Ants often come indoors after NC summer rain — but also during droughts
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- Ants enter homes during heavy rain and also when outdoor conditions are too dry.
- Odorous house ants are the most common; carpenter ants are also common.
- Ant baits are the gold standard because foragers carry bait back to eliminate colonies.
Ants try to enter homes during heavy rain, but North Carolina is in a drought. Unfortunately, ants are just as likely to try to come inside when it is too dry out.
NC State Assistant Professor and Extension Specialist Christopher Hayes said insects, like people, struggle with weather events.
“We always worry about these severe weather events like drought, flood, hurricanes, all those things, we think about us, and we think about our home,” Hayes said. “Then we pause and realize, ‘oh my gosh, there’s also all these other animals trying to survive through this.’ And our home kind of becomes a safe haven for them.”
Ants may be tiny, and individually, need very little water. But ants add up.
“(Ants) need a lot of water for their colony, both to feed and provide hydration, but also to keep humidity up, so that the eggs and larva don’t dry out,” Hayes said.
Other insects, like roaches, are also drawn inside when the weather is inhospitable.
Ants in North Carolina
Hayes said the most common ant found in North Carolina are odorous house ants. House ants trail scents across the home to alert their colony. They are small and black, and don’t sting.
If you squish an odorous house ant, it will smell — to Hayes, like toasted coconut. To some, sort of like a house cleaner.
Carpenter ants are also common. Like odorous house ants, Carpenter ants are black.
“Odorous house ants trail when they find a resource, and they’re moving through your home. Carpenter ants don’t — they oftentimes are kind of individual ants that are wandering around on your floor,” Hayes said.
Other ants found in North Carolina include fire ants, Argentine ants, pavement ants and acrobat ants, according to Triangle Pest Control.
How to get rid of ants
Hayes said the best way to prevent ants is to spy them as soon as they arrive.
“I would say the best way to prevent them is to identify them early, so if you can notice the ants when you have one, two, three ants in your home that are kind of scouting out, then you can really get a jump on it,” Hayes said.
If you don’t catch the ants early there are other options.
“Baits are really the gold standard, because what happens is those ants will consume that bait, they’ll take it back to the colony, and they’ll disperse it among the rest of the colony until it gets back to the queen or queens, and it will wipe everything out,” Hayes said.
Depending on the ant you are dealing with, baits use sweet substances or protein to attract the insects.
“You want to be very careful when you’re doing ant management, and just be aware that you don’t want to contaminate food, you don’t want to contaminate surfaces, and you don’t want to put baits and things in a place where you could risk harming other things,” Hayes said.
It is harder to seal a house against ants than larger insects like cockroaches, but it is still best practice to seal any cracks, the Charlotte Observer previously reported.
This story was originally published June 25, 2026 at 6:00 AM with the headline "Ants often come indoors after NC summer rain — but also during droughts."
