Make Your Home Impervious to Ants

Summer is here, and with summer comes summer insects. Ants are one of the most common summer pests, and if you don't practice some basic prevention, your home can soon become overrun with these pests.

Even though few varieties of ants pose structural risks to your home or bite you like other pests, it's still annoying to find ants in your kitchen. Ants are not sanitary; they track in dirt and contaminants from the outdoors, including germs from other pests that ants have eaten.

Follow these guidelines to make your home impervious to ants.

Clean Up and Cover Up

The main reason why ants love to come inside is that most homes offer a smorgasbord of food ripe for the picking. There are crumbs on the floor, smears of dried food on the counters, and plenty in the sink just waiting to be eaten.

You might feel like your home is clean, but even a few sugar grains in the corner where your cupboard meets the wall is a feast for an ant. Ants scout out food sources, and then they bring back more ants, which is why you often see ants in the same places day after day. They're looking for food where they found it before.

You can cut off the food supply by being fastidious about tidying, especially in places where food is prepped and clean. Use a vacuum instead of a broom to get crumbs out from under the table and cabinets, wipe the counters after every meal, and use cleaner or soap to wash your sink after doing the dishes so no smells or small particles remain behind.

In addition, wash the floors and walls with vinegar. Vinegar helps to disrupt the trails that ants leave behind for their fellow colony mates to follow.

Ants especially like sugar and meat, so you need to carefully cover up leftovers of things stored on the counter. For example, if you keep bananas and other fruit out to get ripe, use a hanging basket or a screen cover so ants can't get to it. Use containers with tight-fitting lids for anything else, including butter.

You can also protect pet food and other food that has to be left out by putting a moat around it. For example, you might set your cat's food dish inside a shallow plate of water. The water keeps the ants from reaching the pet food.

Seal Off Cracks and Small Spaces

Ants also like the safe shelter that your home can offer. Ants like protected spaces, so they might take up residence inside the wall, in a basement crack, or even in the empty space between your cabinet bottom and the floor.

Seal off small cracks and gaps with caulking or putty to keep ants from getting in or out. Sometimes, this task is monumental, especially in older homes that have a lot of nooks and crannies. If that is the case with your home, you might need to up the ante (no pun intended), and get professional help.

Get Professional Help

Once an ant problem begins, it's very difficult to get it under control. Even with ant control products and traps from the local department store, you can still find yourself with ants everywhere. A professional treatment will get rid of the ants you have, and provide barriers to keep more ants from moving in.

At-home products are usually not as effective, and they can be costly over time. Also, killing ants yourself by squishing them or killing them in traps might not do the trick because ants leave scents for other ants to follow, which means that killing one won't stop the trail. The dead ant itself will actually release more scents when it dies that trigger other ants to find it carry it away.

If you have trouble with ants in your home, contact us at Bobby Grisson's Pest Management .