Ants may be famous for ruining picnics, but they don’t make good houseguests, either! While these industrious insects are beneficial to the environment, the same cannot be said for your home. Dealing with ant infestations can be more difficult than many other pests for a variety of reasons. If you find ants returning time and time again to your kitchen you may be in desperate need of expert pest control tips on how to get rid of these unwelcome visitors.
1. Never Underestimate the Effectiveness Of Sanitation
One of the most underrated pest control methods is depriving ants of an available food source. What the ants are after in your home is food, which is usually our leavings. Sweeping and vacuuming daily to get rid of crumbs and mopping kitchen floors is a great way to make their job harder. Relocating all dry food to a higher shelf rather than lower cabinets may also make their quest for food tough enough for them to consider other locations other than your kitchen.
2. Understand the Colony
If your pest control efforts have failed in the past, it may be because you don’t understand the reasons why ants are choosing your home to set up shop. Understanding how the ant colony functions is instrumental in making a plan to combat the infestation. You have to understand that the ants you are seeing are just the tip of the iceberg and eliminating them does nothing to address the underlying problem. The fact is, no matter how many times you spray, the queen will always send more ants to retrieve food for the colony.
3. Different Ants Must Be Handled with Different Methods
Just as an infestation of house ants is much less harmful than an infestation of carpenter ants, so are some infestations more implacable than others based on the species involved. Take the time to identify the species of ant and become familiar with the peculiarities of that species. For example, carpenter ants are most active during evening hours when it is cooler, so you may be able to track where these worker ants are going by looking out for them around dinner time. Observing ant activity is the best way to determine what pest control methods to use.
4. Know When to Spray And When To Bait
Spraying for ants may have a limited utility if the colony has easy access to your home’s foundation. If you know where the anthill is, however, spraying around the hill may cause enough of the ants to die that the rest will scatter. If this fails, leaving a toxic bait for the workers to take back to the colony may successfully kill the queen and lead to the collapse of the colony.
Do you need help with an ant infestation that has grown out of control? Contact the experts at University Termite & Pest Control for a free consultation.