With this colony mentality comes the come occurrence of ants entering homes in the hundreds (even thousands) to forage for food and other valuable supplies. While this may be natural for them, ants entering the home has never been a welcome factor in most people’s lives.
However, there’s plenty more you can do besides getting out the bug spray to reduce or stop an ant infestation, which we are focusing on in this blog.
- Remove the sources
Different pests enter homes for different reasons. For ants, one of the main reasons is to find food sources. They’re not interested in consuming the food in your home, but rather they’re interested in collecting the food and taking it back to their nest. To do this, hundreds to thousands of ants from the colony will move in.
Find more info on these contributing factors to any ant entering your home, then the solution is to remove these sources. Keep your kitchen (or any other areas that contain food) clean. Seal jars, remove crumbs and other food scraps, empty your bin regularly and keep your dishes clean. The less easily accessible food you have, the fewer ants will venture in.
- Blocking the trail
Another way to control ants is to find ways to break or block the trail ants take to enter your home. These can differ depending on what the ants consider the best route, but typically you can follow on the key trail they’re taking to enter your home.
To block the trail, you will usually need to create a barrier across the current trail. Home solutions have mentioned creating unbroken lines to cut the trail using things such as chalk, cinnamon, or baby powder. However, if you do plan to create a barrier against the trail outside your home, we would suggest you use a type of surface spray that either deters the ants or kills them.
- Find the source
If you find the last two methods aren’t working, then finding the source of the ants could be the next best approach for you. By following the key trail the ants are taking, you should hopefully be able to reach the source where the ants are coming from – the nest.
Once you’ve found the source, you have two options. The first is to try and treat it yourself either with the likes of bug spray or using suggested remedies such as boiling water and pouring it into the nest. The issue with this first option, however, is that just because you attack the source does not mean you’ve taken care of the colony. For a colony of ants to truly die out, you need to eliminate the queen. If you don’t do that, then chances are the colony will continue unfazed.
Your second option is to get a professional to handle your ant infestation problem. Pest control professionals know exactly what to do once they have found the nest of an ant colony. With their expertise, you can be assured that your pest problem will be taken care of.