Getting Rid of Ants In and Around the Home
Black House Ants (Ochetellus glaber)
These ants are a small intensely black ant, they have a prominent node (petiole), and they are often found in houses around food cupboards and prefer sugary food types. They are approximately 2.5mm in length.
A pest control company would treatment them with a spray, or a dust concentrating on the entry points. This is where a thorough inspection of the property is needed prior to any treatment being done. To have the best chance of keeping ants out of a house is to keep high levels of cleanliness and hygiene. Don’t leave food scraps on bench tops or crumbs that may have dropped onto the floor.
Regular Vacuuming to Keep Ants Away
Vacuum the kitchen floor on a regular basis. This is the best way to help prevent ants from entering a home. Also keep the wheelie bins away from the home. Don’t let them touch the side of the house, as wheelie bins are a great food source for ants. Ants are great climbers and can easily make it into a wheelie bin. Also regularly clean bins wash them out once every 3 months to keep down any odours and food scraps that may be stuck there.
Clean cutters ants like the cutters because they are moist and get full of dead insects and leaf matter. This can be a good source of food and nesting area.
One thing to understand about ants is they are very resilient, and can regroup very fast after an attack from a pest control company. When dealing with ants the only way to rid them from a home is to destroy the nest. This can be difficult as the nest could be anywhere in the garden or house. Baits can be used to kill the whole colony but this is slow and if rain comes in the baits can be washed away, and not totally destroying the nest.
Find the Nest and Destroy It
The best way a pest control company can kill the whole nest would be to locate it and flood it with a spray solution, but this can be time consuming and costly. Preventive treatments are what is usually done. This is a perimeter spray around the house and window ledges with a product that has good residual properties for longer lasting effects.
Another area to be treated by a pest control company is the weep holes around a house, ants can get into these areas and build nests and even gain excess to the whole house. This is where the dusting works very well as the is an instant knock down for ants. The dust will start to break down the nerve system, and leaving them no room to escape and rebuild a colony elsewhere.
Ants start to make their way into your homes once the wet season starts, since they are looking for a dry place to live. Having them around is a health risk to you and your family, especially if you have children. Some homeowners use things normally found at home to kill ants such as boiling water, vinegar, dishwashing soap and detergent. Probably the simplest and safest way is to use duct tape and sticking it to the line of ants walking on the floor or wall of your house. Although this may kill ants for a certain period of time, the effect will never last long.
It would still be best to ensure cleanliness in your home. Leaving garbage lying around or leaving food openly on the tables and kitchen sink is a definite invitation for ants to come into your home.
Even though homeowners still try to use their own simple ways to extricate ants, remember that these are pests that will continue to come to your home uninvited if they are not dealt with properly. This is why some people delegate this task to a professional pest control service. You simply call the pest control service company and they do the work for you.
Why Hire a Professional
As much as you want to eliminate ants by yourself, you may not be able to determine the proper way of exterminating them. Instead of solving the problem, there is a risk of aggravating the situation. Lack of knowledge on how to safely eradicate ants might bring risk to your children and pets at home.
Hiring a good pest control company is the most effective and safest way to wipe out ants in your home this wet season. Having sufficient knowledge of controlling pests, the professional pest control specialist is fully aware of the structured way to handle the issue. They know how to get to the root of the problem by locating the nest of ants in your house or in your garden.
Inspection will be performed in your home to determine the entry and exit locations of ants. Since there is a wide variety of ants, pest control personnel will have to determine the type of ants and come up with the proper treatment. Different ant species entail different treatment.
Look for the Best Pest Control Service
Hiring the best pest control company requires research about the background of the company. There are several factors you might want to consider such as the price of the service. Look for testimonials about the services offered by the company. And most importantly, select the one that offers an effective yet safe and environmentally friendly treatment for eliminating ants in your home. A non-toxic and water-based treatment is safe for your children and pets.
For more information about the most effective professional pest control service, please call 1800 187 561.