In the U.S., there are more than 20 varieties of ants that invade or live in our homes, making them America’s number one household pest. Ants can be an ugly problem – house-infesting ants invade kitchens and living areas, carpenter ants damage wood by hollowing it out for nesting, and mound-building ants mar the appearance of lawns and landscaped areas.
How do I control Ants?
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Keep ants out, caulk cracks and crevices around foundations that allow entry from the outside.
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Indoors, eliminate cracks and crevices wherever possible, especially in kitchens and other food-preparation and storage areas.
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Store sugar, syrup and sweets in washed, closed containers; remove residue from their exterior surfaces.
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Rinse out and remove empty soft-drink containers. Thoroughly clean up grease and spills. Take kitchen waste out daily when ants are a problem indoors.
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Correctly identify the Ant
Solving an Existing Ant Problem
Spray is a quick acting short term solution for ants - you can't kill the nest this way. Spraying will only kill the worker ants but not the queens. This may reduce your ant population but unless you can kill every single worker - which will cause the colony to starve and crash - which is very difficult in ant control, you will not get control.
When controlling ants - you have to eliminate the nest or colony. This is the only way to get total control. So that is where your search begins. Generally you will see more activity closer to the nest than away from it. Look for signs of nesting around windows, doors, and other places where moisture is prevalent. That is where most ant species prefer to nest. So look for the moisture, also air conditioners, shower stalls, or bath tubs on outside walls are good places too.
Sometimes you can actually follow the ants back to their nest if they are trailing around. If not and you only see winged ants then it may be very difficult to see anything. Place small pea size placements of one of these baits wherever you think the ants are. Place the placements in window sills, corners of walls, even take off electrical switch plates and put the bait inside the outlet - the same for plumbing lines.
If these baits do not work, then you may have to resort to dusting all the wall voids in your apartment with Boric Acid Dust. This is accomplished by removing the electrical switch plates and inserting a small duster (white crusader) into the wall void and blowing the boric acid dust into the walls. All switch plates, electrical lines, plumbing lines, weep holes, cracks, crevices etc, need to be treated to effectively control all the places where the ants might live or travel. This is called a wall and void treatment.
Pest Supply Central recommends the use of both types of systems, spray as a fast acting, short term solution and our bait systems for long term Ant protection.
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