Why ants hit Canton kitchens every spring.
The April thaw is the starting gun. Colonies that spent winter in the soil along your foundation wake up hungry, and the first warm rain sends scouts straight through the gaps every Ohio foundation has. By the time a trail shows up on the counter, the colony already has a map of your kitchen.
Carpenter ants are the heavier problem. They don’t eat wood like termites, but they excavate it — and they pick the damp spots first: window frames, door jambs, the rim joist behind a slow gutter leak. A carpenter ant trail is often the first visible sign of a moisture problem, and your tech will tell you straight when that’s what they’re looking at.
Store spray makes it worse in a specific way: kill the foragers and many colonies respond by budding — splitting into multiple smaller colonies that are harder to trace. That’s why the smashers treat the source and let the workers carry the fix home themselves.