Though ants do not pose serious danger to humans or spread illnesses, they can become a nuisance once they enter your home or property. One primary concern for all homeowners is to save food items from ants and similar pests. Species such as black ants, carpenter ants, odorous ants, and acrobat ants often enter a house or apartment to find food or build a nest—all of us store food items in the kitchen and the pantry. Unless proper measures are taken, there will always be a chance for ants and other pests to break into the kitchen and get into food containers or damage bread, sweet substances, dry food, etc.
That is why it is crucial that you follow some tips in order to save all the food items stored in the kitchen. At Final Exterminators, our specialists like to educate people and help them ant-proof food storage.
Ant Species that Get Into Food Sources
There are thousands of ant species present in different parts of the world. While you might have heard about those ant species that invade a home or building, ant species that get into food items are called sugar ants. These ant species do not bite or sting, but they will contaminate the food.
Usually, sugar ants get into food items that are sweet. The ant species is especially known for its strong sense of smell. If you leave food containers open or bits of food in the kitchen here and there, sugar ants will smell it and enter the area through holes and cracks around the house. Once these pests are inside, they will contaminate the food items or damage the food items. In some people, eating contaminated food can cause different types of allergic reactions. The biggest problem with ants is that once they have entered your home and found a food source, they will keep coming back in large numbers. If not controlled in time, you may soon have an ant infestation in your house, mansion or apartment.
In any case, you will always want to stop ants from getting into, contaminating, or damaging your food storage. You need to take preventive steps and keep all the food sources protected in advance.
To know more about what ants can do, talk to one of our ant removal experts at Final Exterminators in Moreno Valley, CA.
How to Keep Ants Out of Your Food Storage
Once ants have found a source of food in your house, they will take the food particles back to their colony. Not only that, the ants will travel back and bring with them an entire army of worker ants for help. If this continues, you will see a large population of ants coming in and going out. While your kitchen or pantry can be secure against different types of harmful pests, you should protect and save the food items from ants as well in order to avoid food damage and contamination. Whichever pest control it is, you need to take the necessary steps ahead of time.
If you plan to keep ants out of your kitchen and save your food storage, here are some tips that you should follow.
Do Not Leave Dirty Dishes in the Sink
Food crumbs and dirt lying here and there in the kitchen will attract ants quickly. Often, homeowners leave the sink dirty with food-covered dishes and food crumbs. Such scenarios should be avoided.
Do not leave dirty dishes and food-covered plates in the sink for too long. You need to put the dishes in the dishwasher. If you want to make your kitchen ant-proof, you should never leave dirty dishes lying in the sink for hours. Whether it is ants or other pests, food crumbs and leftovers will invite them pretty quickly. Once they have located the food source and entered your kitchen, you can expect to see more of them and the food storage could also get contaminated.
Seal Up Tiny Holes and Cracks
You need to focus on the entry paths, first of all. Ants are so tiny that they can easily pass through tiny gaps, cracks, and holes around the doors and windows in your house or apartment. Even if you have a state-of-the-art kitchen, there might still be cracks in some places. Look for these cracks around the door and the windows and in the joints of the room. Make sure you search for these tiny gaps and cracks all around the room and seal them all up properly.
When it comes to ant control, all entry points or access paths in a kitchen or pantry need to be properly sealed.
Do Not Spill Cereal or Leave Food Crumbs Behind
Do you have kids and pets in the house? If you have young children or a puppy in your house, you should be extremely careful about not dropping food crumbs or cereals here and there. It is common for kids to grab some cereal and leave the packet half-open or spill food on the shelf or floor. If you have ants nesting outside the window or near the walls of your house, you should expect the ants to get a smell of the spilled food and enter your home. For your general knowledge, ants can smell food from a couple of kilometers from your home.
Spilled cereal and food crumbs can also attract roaches to your home. In order to keep all these pests out of your home, you should keep an eye on the kids and keep all the food items sealed.
Store Food in Airtight Containers
Pay attention to how you store all the food reserves in your home. If you want to save food from ants and other pests, you should buy airtight containers from the market for proper storage of all food items.
Thanks to new technologies, you will easily find top-quality and sophisticated containers to store food at home. These airtight containers do not just protect the food from pest contamination, but they also save the food from moisture. Based on your needs, you can use different shapes and sizes of these containers. Once you open a container, just close it back properly. Proper food storage will offer protection against a variety of pests including ants, termites, roaches, etc.
Use Safe Ant-Deterrents
There are several harmless deterrents that you can keep in your kitchen to prevent the invasion of ants. One of these safe deterrents is vinegar, which is quite effective at preventing ants from forming trails in your home. In order to attract other ants from a nearby nest or colony, ants leave a trail of pheromones. Using vinegar removes that trail of pheromone left by ants. Tea tree oil, ground black pepper, and baking soda are other harmless deterrents you can use.
For more tips on how to get rid of ants, feel free to talk to one of our ant removal experts at Final Exterminators near Moreno Valley and Riverside, CA. We specialize in the removal of various ant species.
Scatter Bay Leaves and Cinnamon around the House
All of us use bay leaves and have them in the kitchen. What you may not know yet is that bay leaves can drive away ants.
Ants find it hard to tolerate the smell of certain herbs. For example, bay leaves and cinnamon are very effective at keeping ants away. These herbs give out a strong scent that ants can’t stand. So, what you need to do is scatter some of these herbs around the house and the kitchen in a strategic manner. Try to use fresh bay leaves for the best results. You can also mix the herbs with water in a bottle and spray the mixture around the house. As soon as ants catch the smell of these herbs, they will know that this is one area they should not enter.
Seek the Help of Professionals
Hopefully, following these tips will help you keep ants out of your home. But you may find yourself in situations where such measures do not work. This is because your home can be attacked by different ant species. If you still have a pest problem or the ants do not stop coming back, you should take the help of a pest control and removal specialist or an exterminator to get rid of the problem. Exterminators have several years of experience in identifying exactly which species of ants have invaded your food storage and how to get rid of the pests permanently.
However, you should always hire a company that specializes in the removal of various ant species. This is because the ant treatment methods to get rid of ants vary from one particular species to another.
Looking for a Pest Control Company with Ample Experience in the Ant Removal Services?
Many homeowners try to deal with an ant problem on their own. But if the problem is a big one or it fails to go away with DIY products, it is definitely time to turn to a highly experienced professional or pest management company. At Final Exterminators, we provide fast and effective pest control solutions by using up-to-date technology and the latest equipment. If you plan for the best protection of your food storage, our ant removal services are ideal for you.
For your free consultation, you can give our pest control specialists in and near Moreno Valley and Riverside, CA, a quick phone call or write us an email using the contact form given on our website.
