Having ants inside the house can be a big nuisance for some people. Not only is it extremely frustrating to have ants running around your home but a colony of ants could inflict a considerable amount of damage to your home as well. On top of that, having ants inside your home is not really hygienic either.
There are some ant varieties out there that can actually bite humans, such as fire ants. Carpenter ants, on the other hand, are best known for damaging building materials and as you may already know, ants enjoy eating people’s food. Another reason why having ants running around your home isn’t the best thing in the world is that they carry bacteria that can easily be transferred to food and open wounds.
Did you know that there are approximately 12,000 different varieties of ants living on Earth? And let’s face it – no one likes it when ants enter their home, especially during hot summer days. They tend to start behaving like they own the place when in reality, they don’t. This is why keeping your home clean at all times is such an important thing to do – it can keep ants from entering your premises. And now, here are some of the best things that you can do to take all those uninvited guests known as ants out of your home:
3 Ways to Get Rid of Ants
Pretty much every ant that you can find inside of your home is searching for food that the worker ants can carry back to their nest later on. The worker ants leave a chemical trail for other worker ants to follow and this is something you can use to trick ants into bringing some sort of bait back to their nest.
Using Ant Baits Inside of Your Home
Using a pesticide spray allows you to eliminate some ants running around your home, but there’s no doubt that more ants will quickly replace the ones that you’ve eliminated. Placing an ant bait inside of your home, on the other hand, is always a better method than simply using a pesticide spray. Ant baits are edible materials that are toxic to ants but have little to no toxicity when used on humans or animals. There are some ant baits that are primarily made from a certain natural substance that can’t harm humans when used properly – this substance is called boric acid.
No matter what kind of ant bait you decide to use, be sure to place it close to visible ant trails but away from children or pets. Ant baits work best when other surfaces are clean since they are the only things that look sweet enough to attract the ants. Worker ants will carry these baits back to their nest, but keep in mind that it might take several days – if not even a few weeks – to eliminate the entire colony. You might even need to replace the bait station every once in a while. Slowly but surely, the infestation will go away.
Using a Spray Pesticide Outside of Your Home
If you ever happen to follow an ant trail that leads to the nest, one of the best ways to get rid of the colony for good is to apply a heavy dose of a liquid pesticide to the nest. Be sure to use the right kind of pesticide spray and follow all of the instructions if you want this method to be effective. You also need to make sure that this is the colony that’s causing your indoor infestation problems – there are many types of ants that you have no reason to kill at all.
Keeping Your Home Clean
Just like any living creature out there, ants need food, water, and shelter to survive. Don’t make it easy for ants to find these things inside of your home. Keep your food sealed, surfaces cleaned, and floors swept. But be careful not to accidentally get rid of the ant trails until you have successfully located and eliminated the infestation. Once you get rid of the infestation, clean up the trail surfaces and be sure to keep them clean at all times.
How to Keep Ants from Entering Your Home
Since ants are tiny in stature, it’s easy for them to enter homes and other buildings through small cracks and crevices. To prevent this from happening to you, seal all the cracks and crevices around your windows and doors, as well as all the cables, pipes, and wires lying around your home. Keeping your home clean of crumbs and storing your food in sealed containers can help keep ants away as well. You can also consider getting pest control done regularly to keep ants and other pests away for good.
Ants vs. Carpenter Ants vs. Termites
Pavement ants, pharaoh ants, and odorous home ants – these are the most common ant species that you see running around your home. These species feed mainly on grease, sugar, and other substances that can be found in your kitchen. Although these ants can be quite annoying sometimes, they don’t pose much of a risk to you or your loved ones.
Carpenter ants, however, are a completely different story. These ants are relatively big and they can be reddish-orange or black in color. If you’ve ever seen an ant with a pair of wings, chances are you saw a worker carpenter ant. Carpenter ants feed mainly on decaying wood and tunnels that they build in a home’s wood framing can cause a considerable amount of structural damage to the home itself.
Termites can be even more dangerous than ants. Although they look quite similar to carpenter ants, termites don’t have the narrow waist and a clearly segmented body that carpenter ants do. And instead of having just two wings, termites have four wings of equal size.
If you see either one of these pests inside your home, be sure to call a pest control management specialist and discuss the issue with them. Also, if you suspect that carpenter ants are building tunnels inside your walls, calling a professional pest control service might be your best option. Most other ant infestations can be taken care of by a homeowner, but if the infestation keeps coming back every time, then consulting with Aardwolf Pestkare is the best thing to do.
