SETTLED GROUND, FEWER MOUNDS
How many fire ants does a Watauga yard really get?
Fewer than almost anywhere north of you. Most of Watauga went up in the 1970s and 80s, so the soil under those brick homes has had four decades to settle and refill with the ant species that compete with fire ants for the same ground. Add the shade from mature trees, which keeps the soil cooler than a fire ant queen likes, and a typical Watauga lawn carries one or two colonies a year rather than a dozen.
The exceptions are predictable. A sunny front lawn with no tree over it, a strip of turf that was torn out and re-sodded last year, or the ground along a new fence or driveway all count as open or disturbed soil, and that is exactly where a mound shows up in this small city between Haltom City and Keller. Our answer is the same one we use everywhere: bait the whole yard, not the mound.
WHAT WATAUGA PAYS
Included with the plan, and Watauga's house sizes keep the plan cheap
Fire ant bait carries no separate charge; it rides inside both year-round plans. Since both plans are priced on the square footage of the house and Watauga's 1970s and 80s homes tend to be modest, most households here sit in the two lowest bands: $30 a month on Home Defender for a house up to 1,500 square feet, or $33 to $38 a month for one between 1,500 and 3,000.
Complete Home & Lawn Defense adds treatment of the entire yard for grubs, armyworms and chiggers, at $40 a month for the smallest homes and $40 to $51.50 in the next band. The fire ant bait covers the whole lawn on either plan, so the difference is what else you want handled in the turf. There is nothing to sign, no fee to begin and none to leave.
Up to 1,500 sq ft
$30/mo Home Defender
Many original Watauga homes in 76148
1,500 to 3,000 sq ft
$33–$38/mo
The common Watauga band
Those two bands, whole-yard plan
$40–$51.50/mo
Complete Home & Lawn Defense
Every number on this page comes from our published price list. Watauga homes get the same table as everyone else; the instant quote reads your square footage and lot size and hands you your own line.
WHAT THE BAIT WON'T FIX
Three honest limits for a Watauga homeowner
You will wait. Broadcast bait is food, and the colony has to gather it, carry it down and pass it to the queen before anything collapses, which in a Watauga yard means live mounds for roughly two to three weeks after we spread it. If there is a mound beside the swing set, say so and we will watch that spot, but the biology sets the clock, not us.
It does not stop an indoor ant problem by itself. The ants trailing across a 1980s Watauga kitchen counter are usually a different species coming through worn thresholds and open weep holes, and that is exclusion and perimeter work, which is the other half of the same plan.
And it does not make an untreated neighbour's yard go away. Lots in Watauga are close together, so a colony next door can send a new queen over the fence after a summer storm. Mounds that appear between scheduled visits are handled at no charge; that is what the warranty between treatments is for.
ONE PLAN OR THE OTHER
Does a Watauga home need Complete Home & Lawn Defense for fire ants?
Not for the fire ants. Both plans put the same broadcast bait across the same whole yard, so if mounds are the only thing wrong with your Watauga lawn, Home Defender at $30 to $38 a month is the right buy and we will say so on the first call.
The upgrade to Complete Home & Lawn Defense pays for itself when the established Bermuda or St. Augustine under those Watauga shade trees has other trouble: grubs lifting the turf in late summer, armyworms stripping it in the fall, or chiggers on a lot that backs onto a drainage easement. Then the whole-yard lawn treatment matters, and the bait is still along for the ride.
FIRST VISIT ON AN OLDER LOT
What happens the first time we come to a Watauga house
Find the sun before the mounds
On a shaded Watauga lot the fire ant habitat is small and specific: the open front lawn, the parkway strip at the curb, the sunny side yard. We walk it, flag any active mounds and note where recently replaced turf sits, because that soil is the most likely to be claimed next.
Spread the bait across all of it
The granules go over the entire lawn with a broadcast spreader at a rate so light you will not see them in the grass. We pick a day with about 24 dry hours ahead so the foragers collect the bait before rain can spoil it.
Then turn to the brick
Because this is a Home Defender visit, the same stop treats the foundation band and the eaves and puts Delta Dust in the weep holes that forty-year-old Watauga brick has plenty of. On an older home that work matters more than the bait does.
