3 Ways to Kick Ants Out of Your House
Are you worried about ants in your home or on your property? Ants are widespread in Florida, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible to keep them away. The Orlando pest control experts at Apex have three tips for kicking ants out of your home.
Pay Attention to Prevention
To keep ants out of your home, focus on prevention. Ants may enter your home for food, so sanitation is very important. Food debris and spills should be cleaned up as quickly as possible to avoid attracting ants.
Sealing ant-entry points can also help prevent an infestation. Entry points can be found around baseboards, sinks, outlets, and other areas with small cracks. Use caulk to fill these cracks to keep ants outdoors.
Preventative pest treatments can also help keep ants at bay. Indoors, residual pesticide sprays can be used for this. It’s important not to use bait stations when you don’t have an ant problem. That’s because the bait stations can attract ants into your house. Outdoors, you can pre-treat your property with a broad pesticide with a slower release. This helps keeps ants away.
Make Sure to Target the Queen
If ants move into your house despite your prevention efforts, it’s not enough to just squish or spray the ones you see crawling around. Other ants, including the egg-laying queen, are safely hidden away in a nearby colony. They could be hiding inside your walls, behind your appliances, or in other hard-to-reach areas. If you don’t target these hidden ants, the infestation will continue.
Bait stations can help you kill ants that you can’t reach otherwise. The foraging ants bring the bait back to the colony and feed it to the others, including the queen. Once the queen dies, the colony can be eliminated.
Be Persistent
Ants are hard to get rid of, so to kick them out for good, you need to be persistent. Bait stations are often effective, but for optimum results, a sustained period of feeding is usually needed. Wherever ants are seen, continue placing additional bait stations. Ants can be picky eaters, so you may need to try more than one bait before you get results.
Fire ants are the most difficult to control. Areas can be re-infested when nearby ant colonies expand or when newly mated queens arrive. Within 12 to 18 months of treatment, fire ant populations can fully recover. Ongoing control is necessary for these pests.
With these three tips, you can control the ants in and around your home. If you need assistance, contact the Orlando pest control professionals today or check out our blog today! We would be happy to help.
