Ants do not usually present any particular danger but an ant infestation can still be very annoying. There are thousands of species of ants but fortunately only a few ever invade our homes. The vast majority of species prefer to stay outside in the garden where they actually do good work such as eating aphids and aerating your soil. You should never kill ants in your garden because they are so useful. If you do get an infestation of a house-loving species, however, it can be difficult to work out where they’re getting in or how to get rid of them. You have to look at everything, from their entrance points to what is attracting the ants to your home in the first place.
To help everyone clear their home from these annoying critters, here is what to do if your house is infested with ants.
1. Clean your house thoroughly
Ants coming into our homes is very common for one simple reason: your home is a fantastic source of free food and shelter. You may think your home is totally clean, but ants are so tiny that even a few crumbs or tiny traces of food are enough for them. Make sure you clean up any crumbs, any food spills, and never leave dirty dishes in the sink or uncleaned pet food bowls on the floor. This will stop ants coming in because if there is nothing to eat then they will go elsewhere for food. The most important rooms in the house to clean are the kitchen, living room, and any other places where you prepare or eat food. Pay particular attention to areas like under the refrigerator or in the corners near your trash cans as crumbs of food often get swept into these places and left unseen.
2. Locate the ants’ entrance points
While your home may be totally sealed and secure from people breaking in, the tiniest hole or crack is enough for ants to come and go as they please. There are some species of ants like carpenter ants which can cause structural damage to your home so the best thing is to stop them coming in altogether. If you are wondering how to get rid of carpenter ants, you should first find where they are coming in. This is very simple as all you need to do is follow the trails of ants in your house. They may be coming in through a tiny gap between your door and the frame or through an air vent or pipe. Once you have located the entrance you can then take the necessary steps to close it up.
3. Clean the trails
After you have blocked up the entranceway, you can then wait to see if this is successful. Spray all the live ants in your home to kill them and then clean and disinfect their trail routes. Ants leave a chemical map for others in their colonies to follow to food sources and shelter. Once an ant colony has earmarked your home as a place of interest, it can be very difficult to change their mind. You will need to clean up all food traces and close up entrance points as explained above, and also clean up the chemical trails so that there will be nothing for them to follow. If the ants are still coming in via an alternative route, and you find new trails after cleaning up the old ones, you will need to take steps to get rid of them altogether.
4. Understand how ant colonies work
The problem with only killing the ants you can see in your home is that there will be so many others you can’t see. No matter how many worker and soldier ants you kill, the queen will keep producing more to replace those that are lost. The key to eliminating an ant infestation is to kill the queen and to do that you will need to use a special type of ant bait. Instead of killing the ants in your home, use them as a means to take the poison back to the queen. The most effective ant baits are made from sugary substances which ants love but which also contain pesticides. The worker ants will take this food back to the queen to eat which will kill her. This may take a few weeks if the ants have a particularly big colony and especially if they have more than one queen.
An ant infestation is not as bad as a cockroach or rat problem but it can still be a nuisance. It is never nice to open your cupboards and find your sugar or cereal teeming with ants, and some species can actually do damage by eating through your wood. If you have an ant infestation, follow this simple guide and you may be able to eradicate it. If not, it may be time to call in the professionals.
