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Ants are covered under standard general pest service. There is no separate ant fee. The treatment that ends an Argentine colony is the same perimeter and interior program that keeps everything else out.
Prices for homes up to 2,000 square feet. Pricing effective 2026. Final price confirmed at inspection. Licensed PR 7461, Branch 2 and 3. See all Riverside pest control prices.
Using more of the same thing gets you the same result. Here is exactly what goes down at your house, and why the colony cannot route around it.
Ants cannot detect it. They walk across the treated surface, carry it back through the trail network, and pass it through the colony before anything registers as a threat. That is the difference between a product that stops at your foundation and one that reaches the nest. It is labeled to control multi-queen species for up to three months, and it carries a growth regulator, so the queens stop producing while the workers are still delivering.
We place it directly on active trails, at entry points, and at the base of trees where ants are farming honeydew. Workers take it back as food. One placement keeps working for up to ninety days.
The gel bait’s label excludes carpenter, fire, harvester, and pharaoh ants. If that is what you have, baiting is the wrong tool and we locate and treat the nest directly instead. That is the whole reason we identify the species before anything comes off the truck.
Every product is EPA-registered and applied per label by state-licensed technicians. Southland Pest Control is a family-owned Riverside pest control company licensed under PR 7461, Branch 2 and 3. Marcelo Gallo is our Qualified Manager, OPR 12994. Hector Guzman, FR 62691, is the technician most of our Riverside reviews name.
For clients who want a botanical option, we use an OMRI-listed insecticide derived from chrysanthemum.
Inspection, exact quote, then the work. In that order, every time.
We walk the property before anything comes off the truck. Trails get followed to entry points, we confirm the species, and the treatment gets built around what we find. Usually ninety minutes.
Baseboards, cracks, under sinks, and behind appliances where trails run. Gel bait goes directly on active lines. Indoor work is normally only needed on the first visit.
This is where the colony lives, so this is where most of the work happens. Foundation line, eaves, weep holes, fence lines, and the base of any tree or shrub where ants are farming honeydew.
Follow-up on a schedule that matches the pressure at your property, monthly through quarterly. Ants show up between visits and we come back and re-treat at no charge.
Free re-treats4.9 stars across 180+ reviews. These are the ant calls.
It Never Came Back
“We had an ant problem when I first called Southland Pest Control and they took care of it and never had another one since then. They are a family business with friendly amazing customer service.”
Gadeer Z. · Google review
Zero Ants Since
“Fantastic friendly service. Ever since using SPC we have had zero ants. Thank you.”
Joe M. · Local Guide · Google review
Repellent products push ants away instead of killing the colony. The trail relocates, and an Argentine colony under that kind of pressure splits into separate nests.
Ants are covered under general pest service starting at $60 a month for homes up to 2,000 square feet. A one-time treatment starts at $225 with a 60-day warranty, and that same $225 is waived as the initial fee when you sign a one-year agreement. The number that moves is square footage, and you get an exact quote before any work begins.
The colony never left. Argentine ants nest shallowly in irrigated soil, and Riverside winters do not get cold enough to knock the population down. What changes is the weather. Heat drives them toward water, rain floods shallow nests, and they move indoors on a new route. Same colony, different door.
We use EPA-registered products applied per label by state-licensed technicians, and every visit ends with clear re-entry times for kids and pets. You will always know what was applied and when your family can use the space. Tell us about your household when you book and we plan around it.
Trails usually thin within a few days as workers carry treatment back through the network. Full colony control takes two to three weeks, because the product has to reach queens you will never see. If ants show up before your next scheduled visit, we come back and re-treat at no charge.
Three things went wrong, and none of them were you.
Ants on your counter are foragers, the colony’s search party. In an Argentine colony they are a small fraction of the population at any moment. The rest of it, every queen included, sits in the soil outside your house.
Almost every ant product sold for home use is repellent. It creates a line ants will not cross, so they find the treated edge, read it as a hazard, and go around. The trail moves to the next gap in the foundation, the next weep hole, the next window frame.
Argentine ants run a linked network of nests with many queens across a whole block. Cut part of that network off from the rest and it does not die. It sets up on its own. One colony becomes several, and each one keeps producing.
That is why the trail came back wider than it started.
The definitive California reference on household ants is UC IPM Pest Notes: Ants, written by entomologists at UC Riverside.
Two things keep ants in your yard. Both are fixable.
Sealing cracks helps with scouts. It does nothing about the colony that sent them. If you want fewer ants next summer, take away the two things keeping them in your yard.
Water. Argentine ants nest shallow, just under the soil, and irrigated landscaping is why Riverside yards suit them. Fix sprinkler overspray against the foundation, repair slow leaks, and move standing water away from the house. Seeing them around the pool? Read why ants show up in the swimming pool.
Honeydew. Ants farm aphids and soft scale on citrus and ornamentals for the sugar they produce, and they will defend those insects from anything that threatens them. Treating the aphids on your lemon tree removes a food source most homeowners never connect to the trail on their counter.
Then the ordinary things: crumbs and spills cleaned up, food in sealed containers, branches trimmed back off the roofline so they stop being bridges.
None of it reaches the nest. That part is up in Why They Came Back in More Places.
One visit finds the colony, names the species, and gives you an exact price. Ant control from $60 a month, with free spot treatments between visits.
