Ants are looking for two things in your home: food and water. "Toilets, bathrooms are often areas where you'll get a lot of ants," Mr Goodfellow said. "A bit of water in your kitchen or syrups, they'll soon track inside to it." Even the cleanest of houses can have ant issues.
The Ants Are Looking for a Source of Water
Sometimes, ants aren't interested in the food you have in the house, but a reliable source of water, especially during the hot season, when temperatures are extreme. Ants can use a leaking pipe or a faulty faucet to drink water, so make sure your plumbing is ok.
Moisture: Ants require a water source to survive and can even store water for later within their colonies, so they will return to the same home again and again if there is moisture available.
They are often looking for easy food sources, which is why infestations are extremely common in kitchens and places where leftover food resides. This is one of the main causes of ant infestations, but luckily, it's also one of the easiest to remedy!
Unfortunately, it's very unlikely that ants will go away on their own. If ants have already established themselves in your home, it's because they find certain conditions favorable. If you've tried cleaning and sealing off food and you're still not seeing an improvement, you might need professional help.
The most effective way of getting rid of ants permanently is to call a professional pest controller. They can eliminate an infestation as well as put measures in place to ensure you're never faced with one again.
Ants commonly nest in hidden places. So if you can't get to the actual source of the nest, you can use bait stations to destroy the colony. Bait traps attract ants with the smell of food and get them to take a slow-acting poison back to the nest.
One of the most common ways to tell if you have an ant infestation in your wall cavities is by listening for the sound of crawling ants in the affected wall. This sound can be soft scratching and the sound of gnawing as they eat away on the wood inside your wall.
Use your flashlight to look for ants behind or under refrigerators, stoves, microwaves, dishwashers, sinks, and cabinets. Ants may also be found in or around floor drains, inside the motor areas of refrigerators and microwaves, behind wall paper, and in cracks and crevices in cabinets and around walls.
Peppermint is a natural insect repellant. You can plant mint around your home or use the essential oil of peppermint as a natural remedy for control of ants. Ants hate the smell, and your home will smell minty fresh! Plant mint around entryways and the perimeter of your home.
Use this white vinegar solution to spray all entry points of your home, try to spry all windows, doors, baseboards and the common paths that ants would travel within your home. Give about an hour for this solution to take effect, then after a few hours the ants should be dead.
An ant invasion is annoying, but it can also be dangerous to your health and your home, depending on the type of ant you're dealing with. And as with any pest problem, you definitely shouldn't ignore it and just hope it goes away.
If the ant hills are found near the building or against walls, it is a cause for concern. If you notice ants both inside and outside, you should contact a professional to take care of the situation. Contact Preventive Pest Control Today!
Fragrant shampoos, soaps, and lotions may also attract ants, so keep bottles sealed and do not leave residue behind. The best way to keep ants out of your bedroom is to keep food and sugary drinks out too. Ants will come looking for it.
Ant nests are visible.
If you're seeing small piles of dirt pop up in the grass close to your house, you may have an ant problem. Ant nests aren't always in the yard, however; some ants like to build their nests in walls or other quiet, dark places which will be difficult to find for many homeowners.
Ant eggs are produced by a queen ant which can lay up to 1,000 eggs a day if needed. These eggs hatch into swarms of ants determined to build a colony and forage for food. The tiny critters might choose to build a nest in your walls, basement, or right outside your back door.
You can eliminate the pheromone scent that forms ant trails by spraying a mixture of water and vinegar onto it. Mix equal parts white vinegar and water in a spray bottle, spray down the ant trail and wipe up with a paper towel. The scent of vinegar also acts as an ant deterrent, but will only last for four to 48 hours.
Distilled White Vinegar
A white vinegar and water solution is a common method to wipe out ants for good. Ants don't like the smell of vinegar. It not only repels them; it can also kill them. Depending on how much you can bear the smell, mix at least one part vinegar and three parts water.
Baking soda; vinegar; lemon juice; some detergents (and cleaning products); Tabasco sauce (and other spicy substances, such as red chili pepper, black pepper and cayenne pepper) usually repel ants to varying degrees, and you may have seen them trapped in these circles.
These pheromones leave behind a trail for other ants to follow, so simply sweeping the ants away won't cut it. You have to destroy their tiny trail, and you can do that with a mix of one part vinegar to three parts water. Simply spray it anywhere you've spotted ants.
Pest control professionals use gel baits for ants. It is a handy solution that is effective if the anthill or nest is at the surface. The exterminator will apply the bait near the ant-infested areas and wait for the ants to ingest it. Ant dust.
"Mix equal parts of vinegar and water, place the mixture in a spray bottle, and spray on the ants directly," says Barrett. "The mixture will kill them and you can clean the area by collecting the dead ants using a wet wipe or damp cloth," they add.