Pesky Ant, Go Away! Can Pest Control Really Get Rid of Ants for Good? – California Ant Control
You opened the pantry and noticed a single ant. Or, worse, you turned on your kitchen light to find a line of ants leading to space under your stove. Just what are you going to do?
Ants can be a nuisance, as they are typically attracted to the food inside your home. You worked hard to put food on your family’s table. The last thing you want to share it with is a six-legged ant.
The insects are also looking for shelter, which your home conveniently provides.
Truth be told, ants are interesting creatures. They live in populous colonies and communicate in ways we don’t yet quite understand. Ants are also team-oriented and work together to feed their colonies and keep their nests safe.
By learning more about ants and the ways they feed, nest, and reproduce, we can use that knowledge to exterminate them from your home permanently. Ants may be cool at times, but they belong outside. This guide will teach you more about one of nature’s hardest workers and all the ways we use to keep these pests from invading your home.
Why Do Ants Invade Your Home?
Ants are social creatures. All it takes is a single ant to find a way inside your home, either through a crack or crevice or through an unsealed window, and others may follow. The thing is, once ants invade your home, there is little chance they will self-evict. Ants need to be forced to leave.
The main reason ants find their way indoors is because they are in search of food. It could be that your home is conveniently located next to the colony where the queen decided to build her home. It’s only natural that your home would be included within their natural hunting grounds.
Once inside your home, ants may rejoice because now they have access to readily available food and water! It’s like hitting the motherlode. Now the ants are free to breed with complete abandon, as long as the homeowner doesn’t shut the party down.
This is what you are up against with even the smallest of ant invasions. Luckily, we do have ways of not only keeping new ants from invading your home, but we have ways of ridding your home of all the squatter ants who have worn out their welcome.
Ridding A Home of Ants Can Be Complicated but Not Impossible
Many homeowners immediately suspect that their ant invasion has something to do with the cleanliness of their home. This is a falsehood, as ants don’t care if your home is clean or dirty, as long as they have access to food and water. You might even know you have an ant infestation, as ants can swarm and create large colonies in the voids of your walls. A comforting thought, isn’t it?
There is one instance where cleaning can help to keep new ants out. Ants leave behind a trail of pheromones wherever they have traveled. Other ants pick up this scent up and follow it in hopes of food and shelter. You can think of it as a silent dinner bell of sorts. By wiping away any trails an ant may have left behind with an antimicrobial wipe, you can remove the pheromones, thus keeping new ants at bay.
What Species of Ant Do You see?
The type of ant species can help us determine the best course for ridding your home of ants completely. The ant type may direct us to the nest location, which is the first step to exterminating the entire colony. We will also know what foods the ant species likes best, which can help with poisoned bait and other targeted pest control methods.
Tiny Black Ants
These tiny insects generally prefer to be outdoors. If they found a way in, it was definitely in search of food. Tiny black ants like foods heavy in sugars, starches, and meat.
Exterminators will rid your home of black ants by following their trail directly to their colony. Effective pest control would also include preventative measures, such as sealing off entry points to prevent future ants from gaining access to your home.
Carpenter Ants
Carpenter ants can be winged, which often gets them mistaken for termites. The ants can be black, dark brown, yellow, or red and tend to grow up to 13 millimeters in size. These ants aren’t as easy to eradicate as their tiny dark cousins.
The reason carpenter ants are difficult to exterminate is that they prefer to nest in moistened wood. Once they find a home, the already wet wood can become further damaged, leading to leaks inside your home as well as mold growth.
Finding carpenter ants can be tricky because they could be located both inside and outside your home. A pest control expert can provide you with a full property inspection to find the source of the ants to exterminate them for good.
The Importance of Ant Control and Prevention
The best way to rid your home of ants is to keep them out in the first place. The best course of action is to set up consistent pest control services either monthly, quarterly, or bi-yearly to ensure ants never find their way indoors. Exterminators offer affordable ant pest control plans for business and homeowners, and these can be effective at preventing ant invasions and all associated problems. Associated problems can be property leaks from their nests, contaminated food, and of course the fact that there are bugs in your house.
Seal Up Entry Points
Either you or a pest control expert should conduct a full property inspection looking for any signs of ants. If you notice any holes or spaces in your exterior or interior walls, seal these with caulking or a wall sealant to prevent new ants from gaining access.
You should next seal up any signs of food to ensure the ants don’t have a nutritional source. They won’t spend tons of time looking if you make it hard for them. They would rather find an easy source of food, which means that covering food adequately and sticking more in the fridge may send them outdoors if you are lucky.
Even a few granules of sugar can provide a healthy food source for ants and their young. This means that your cleaning should be thorough. Sweep and vacuum the floors daily and keep the counters clean with an antimicrobial cleaner. While you’re at it, clean the baseboards and behind major appliances like your fridge and stove. Additionally, make sure you take the trash out regularly or you could lure even more pesky ants to invade.
Food Storage
If you want to ensure that ants can’t smell the food inside your home, invest in some good storage tubs. A variety of sizes are readily available and can help you keep food fresh while keeping the ants out. While ants can easily get into an open box of cereal, they’ll have a harder time with a sealed plastic container. While quality containers can keep your food safe, you’ll want to make sure you wipe the containers down after every use. Even food smells on the outside of Tupperware can attract ants. Keep sanitization materials close at hand so that cleaning your kitchen becomes second nature.
Do Over the Counter Sprays Work for ant control?
What about do-it-yourself ant control? Can you go to the store and pick up some spray and keep ants out of your home that way? Maybe, but you have to get the best and safest forms of pest control to be successful.
Sprays can work for killing the occasional ant or ant swarms, since the chemicals are designed to kill on contact. The problem is that colonies are usually tucked away, so killing a few ants won’t put a dent in your infestation. Most over the counter pest control solutions don’t have a residual effect. That means they quit working almost immediately after they are sprayed.
There is another reason your DIY approach to ant control may be ineffective. Some ant colonies are inaccessible. Exterminators need specialized equipment to find these hidden away nests. Possible locations of these secret lairs include inside your walls or in your crawlspace.
If the colony exists outdoors, you may have thousands of ants congregating far below the surface, making over-the-counter extermination treatments impossible.
When Colonies Survive Ant Control Treatment
If you attempt to eradicate the ants on your own or you hire an inexperienced person to do the job, you may find your ant problem persisting. That is because, while you may have killed some ants, the queen has gone on to survive. With her ability to reproduce, the colony can quickly repopulate, forcing you to face an even greater infestation than you had before.
The one ant that is in charge of populating the entire colony is their beloved queen. As long as she remains alive and healthy, she can produce thousands of ants. The more she creates, the more ants need to feed, making your problem even worse.
The queen never leaves the nest after she establishes her colony. Unless you rid your home of the queen, your ant problem will continue. The ants inside your house are usually the worker ants, which are the ones responsible for finding food for the queen and her young. Other ants include soldiers and drones. All of these ants can keep eating your food and getting on your nerves unless you target the queen.
How to Exterminate an Ant Queen
You found an ant colony and destroyed the queen. Your ant problem should be over, right? Not necessarily. Ants sometimes form adjoining colonies, much like we may have several cities inside the same
state. Ants will work with these sister colonies to forage food, and that’s where your kitchen and pantries come in. Therefore, killing a single queen of one colony may not be enough, especially if there are one or more cooperating colonies nearby.
What is the solution?
The only permanent way to get rid of ants is to contact a professional exterminator. A pest control expert can identify the type of ant you are dealing with. Once the ant species have been identified, the expert will know what the diet consists of, leading to potential baiting opportunities, and how to find the nests that may exist either inside or outside the home.
With a full property inspection, the pest control expert will find the source of your ant infestation. These may exist inside your walls or behind your appliances. They could be inside your foundation or in a shed outback. With these queens taken care of, the ant colonies will fall, helping you maintain a pest-free property once more.
Where do you find ant control you can trust in Moreno Valley?
Call Now For Ant Control You Can Trust
Final Exterminators is the name to remember when you want a pest-free home. Ants may be interesting creatures, but they are better observed in their natural environment: outdoors. Send the ants inside your house packing by calling our experienced pest control experts for the help you need.
We can identify the ants inside your home so that we may provide targeted pest control options that are designed to work quickly and effectively. We can find all the nests on your property, even if they are located deep underground, to control your ants for the long-term.
We offer one-time, monthly, quarterly, and bi-yearly pest control. If you have ants, you should act quickly, before the queen is able to produce thousands more.
Call now for a free consultation and get rid of your ants the professional way, by calling our ant exterminators for your peace of mind.
