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Ants

What is the Best Solution to Get Rid of Ants?

Ants love to find food for their colonies. All day, every day, ants are crawling around your plants and trees, window sills and sidewalks looking for food. If ants find a way into your home and discover crumbs, spills, or trash full of discarded food, they will let their friends know and, soon, they will be back for more.

Prevention is always the best solution to keep ants from infesting your home. But if they have already set up shop in your kitchen, getting rid of the ants is the new name of the game. If you can’t seem to get the ants to move on, it’s time to call in a professional to eliminate the ants.

Ant prevention

Ants love to eat and collect food. If your home has places for ants to use as a food source, ants will find it. Keeping a clean, tidy home should be the first defense against ants. A few good habits for not attracting ants are:

  • Sweep and vacuum: Crumbs fall while eating, food items get dropped or spilled while cooking, and eating a meal in front of the TV after a long day at work can all be reasons why food ends up on the floor in multiple different rooms. Sweeping or vacuuming your home once a day and especially under the dining room table will help reduce the number of crumbs in your home. Sweeping the kitchen and dining room after each meal is also a good idea.
  • Wipe down surfaces with white vinegar: Not only is it important to clean up sticky spills, you can also make the surface even less appealing by using white vinegar because ants hate the smell.
  • Take out the trash: Do not leave trash, especially food garbage, in the home for long. As soon as the bag is full, promptly take it out to an outdoor trash can with a lid.
  • Try your best to contain all eating to one room: You may be very good at cleaning up after yourself, but if you have a child who often likes to eat in their room, it’s possible that you will find ants in multiple rooms in your home.

Call a professional

An ant control professional will inspect and treat your property at routine times throughout the year to keep your home and yard ant-free. Your efforts to deter ants will certainly help the situation but if a colony of ants is determined to get into your home, having a pest control expert on your side will make sure you never have to deal with ants marching across your home.

One of the best solutions to make sure that ants do not re-enter your home is for your trusted ant control service to create a chemical barrier that the ants can not get through. Our technicians at Pest Raiders in Las Vegas, NV are committed to partnering with you to find the best solution for getting rid of every single ant from your property.

Categories
Ants

What Should I Do if There is a Trail of Ants in My Home?

Seeing bugs of any kind in your home is not a welcomed sight. But seeing a trail of ants marching into your home can be overwhelming. Your mind may be suddenly filled with questions like: Where are they coming from? How can I stop them? and What should I do?

Fortunately, you are not the first nor the last person to deal with a trail of ants coming into your home. There are several preventative tips and ways to eliminate your current ant problem that you can implement yourself. If the ant problem turns into an ant infestation, you can always call in a professional to eliminate the ant invasion in your home.

Prevent ants from getting in

Ants are always on the lookout for food and water. Knowing what attracts ants can help you keep them out of your kitchen. A few ways to prevent ants from coming into your home are:

Thoroughly clean up spills

If you accidentally knock over a cup of juice or sugary drink, it can be difficult to reach all the places the liquid can spread. But if you really want to make sure you won’t have ants marching into your home, cleaning up every bit of that spill is essential. Make sure to look behind countertop appliances and even in drawers where drips can creep into.  Ants have an incredible sense of smell and can find all the places you miss when cleaning up a spill, so take your time and be thorough.

Wipe down your surfaces

If the ants can smell it, they will find a way to get to it. After you prepare food or eat a meal, be sure to wipe down all surfaces, such as the dining table and countertops, with an all purpose spray to prevent ants from finding a morsel that keeps them coming back for more. The cleaning spray eliminates the smell of food so the ants aren’t tempted to come looking for crumbs in your kitchen.

Keep all food in air tight containers

To keep ants from finding your pantry, place all food in airtight containers. Not only will this prevent ants from finding your cookies, sugar, and other foods, it will also keep other pests from discovering your pantry as well.

Caulk around windows

After normal wear and tear, the caulk around your windows may be missing or damaged, leaving the tiniest entrances for these little, marching insects. Inspect the trim around your windows for any possible damage and apply fresh caulk around the exterior and sometimes interior of the window.

Pet food

If you have a dog or cat, you may keep their food and water bowls in your home. Both pet food and water can attract ants. Ants are always searching for a food source but as the summer heats up, finding easy access to water will also get their attention.

Repelling scents

There are some scents that ants can not stand. You can actually use an ant’s strong sense of smell to repel them from your home instead of entice them.  White vinegar is at the top of the list of most hated scents for ants. Cleaning with white vinegar is a great way to safeguard your surfaces from attracting ants. 

Essential oils such as lemongrass, peppermint, and tea tree oil also repel ants from marching into your kitchen and getting into your food.

Call a pest professional

Keeping regular pest inspections is a great way to prevent pests like ants from coming inside.  Any potential ant problem is eliminated before it is able to develop into an infestation. If you are in Summerlin, NV give Pest Raiders a call so we can help you get rid of that trail of ants in your home.