Ants naturally live outdoors, but commonly they wander into our homes and raid our kitchens in search of food, water, and shelter. Once these ants find food in your kitchen, they create a trail that will lead other ants to the food and water. They will follow this trail to go in and out of your home.
To get rid of these ants, you have to follow their trail. Once you find their point of entry, seal it right away. But, of course this is not as easy as it looks because ants have multiple entry points. And, sometimes they are already living in your home, which makes finding them more difficult. Even if you kill every ant you find, there is no guarantee that you are reducing their presence in your home. Ants have the ability to overpopulate, especially if they have multiple queens that can create thousands of workers every day.
Removing Ants’ Access in Your Home
It is natural that ants create nests in soil, which is why they commonly live outdoors. However, they can also live in wood, which is a favorable nesting site for certain species of ants. They can live in wood, but they can also live in wall voids, and other areas that are not seen by the human eye in homes. It is important to remove any entry points where these ants enter such as:
- Cracks and holes
- Wall voids
- Holes in the foundation around plumbing
- Poorly-sealed windows
- Poorly-sealed doors
When it comes outdoors:
- If you love plants and you want to place them indoors, check the pots for ants.
- Make sure to trim or cut vines, branches and other vegetation that are coming in contact with house foundation.
Defending your Home from Ants
Clean your home. To defend your home against ants, clean your kitchen and even your bathroom since these are the two areas where these pests can get food and water. When the scouts enter your house, they will be looking for the right place where they can get food. Cleaning and sanitizing common food areas will remove their scent trails and probably killing them in the process. The bathroom should also be cleaned since ants like to get into hair products and cosmetics.
Use a solution of soapy water. Place a combination of a teaspoon liquid soap filled with water into a spray bottle, and squirt the ants that you see. The use of soapy water will not just kill ants, but will also eliminate any scent trails they left behind.
Use natural barriers. There are a lot of homemade barriers that you can use in your own home. Once these products are used, ants will not be able to get in, and may just leave your home for the next closest house that they can find. Here are some natural repellents for ants:
- Chalk
- Vaseline
- Baby powder
- Ground cinnamon
- Citrus oil
- Powdered charcoal
- Baking soda
- Vinegar and water spray
- Sprinkling catnip
- Diatomaceous Earth powder
- Peppermint
- Cornmeal
- Coffee grounds
Ant Control
To make sure that ants will not be a regular guest in your kitchen, it is necessary to monitor and inspect nest locations indoors and even outdoors. Properly monitoring your home for ant activities will allow you to find small, isolated colonies that were left unchecked and might one day become a bigger nuisance. Once you find areas of foraging activities, offer them bait so that you can eliminate not just the workers, but the queens as well. If you can properly do the baiting without the ants knowing that they are being poison, then you will effectively get rid of the starting colony.
You can also use pesticides to kill the ants, especially if the nests are located indoors. Use dust formulations to treat nests indoors instead of sprays since they do not stain and provides longer residual result. If nests are located outdoors, different methods of granules, baits, drenches, dusts, aerosols or excavation can be used.
If you want to get rid of ant infestation and protect your property, contact a professional pest control service for more information.