Are you trying to figure out how to get rid of ants? It might seem like an uphill battle, especially when you consider that ants outnumber humans by a significant amount. However, there are ways to protect your home from an ant infestation. Identifying the signs of an ant infestation is a great place to start. Fortunately, ants aren’t nearly as sneaky as termites! Let’s delve into the signs of an ant infestation and discuss how you can get rid of ants in your home.
Signs of an Ant Infestation
Living with ants can be an annoying experience, especially when the ants in question are prone to biting. For many, the signs of an ant infestation are unmistakable and impossible to ignore.
However, some types of ants are pretty gentle and small. They can slowly build a colony within the walls of your home, only becoming noticeable once they’ve reached an unsustainable population.
Identifying the signs of an ant infestation can be challenging, as each ant species has a unique appearance, habitat, and food preference. That said, there are a handful of universal signs to watch for, including:
- Dead ants bodies along windowsills, baseboards, or countertops
- Small piles of dirt near wooden beams, doors, or windows
- Trails of ants walking along the walls, flooring, or furniture
- Loose dirt mounds in the yard
The more aggressive species of ants, such as carpenter ants and fire ants, may also bite you when threatened. Additionally, the nests they build can lead to significant structural damage to your home.
As such, you’ll want to learn how to get rid of ants at the first sign of trouble.
Tips on Ant
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Do NOT remove colony yourself.
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Look for signs of ants
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Do-It-Yourself pesticides can make an ant problem worse.
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The queen must be found and killed.
Can I Get Rid of Ants Myself?
The best course of action to eliminate an ant infestation is to contact a professional ant exterminator immediately. Proper procedures for ant control in and around homes or other buildings depend greatly on the species of ant involved. Most times, populations are controlled using insecticide baits, either in granule or liquid formulations. Bait is gathered by the ants as food and brought back to the nest where the poison is inadvertently spread to other colony members.
Some do-it-yourself products can potentially provide short-term relief, but may in fact, make the ant problem worse. In truth, using a spray pesticide is probably one of the worst things that you can do to kill ants. Products like spray pesticides will repel the ants at first, but the repeated use can cause the ants to just move or split into multiple colonies.
To properly rid an area of ants, the queen must be found and killed. Simply killing foraging ants will not eliminate the colony. If the queen remains, she will continue to lay more eggs to ensure the survivability of the colony.
How to Get Rid of Ants
Getting rid of ants may seem like an impossible challenge, especially when you consider how many types of ants are found in Arizona. However, keeping your home ant-free isn’t nearly a tricky as you may think.
The first thing you’ll need to do is find out what types of ants are in your home or on your property. After all, ants have a variety of food sources and habitat types. If you’re not sure why ants have invaded your home, you may struggle to put an end to their presence. Identifying ant type is an excellent way to determine nest location and begin preventing future infestations. To get started, you’ll want to:
Identify the Type of Ant
Several types of ants live in Tucson, Arizona. Some of the most common species include fire ants, carpenter ants, and odorous house ants. Some ants, such as fire ants, are easily identifiable due to their coloration and painful bites. Others, such as house ants, can be more challenging to identify correctly. Still, you can use the University of California’s pest identification key to help you discover which ants you might be encountering.
Naturally, you can also choose to contact a pest control specialist. Not only will a pest control technician be able to identify the type of ant in your home, but they’ll also have a great idea about where the ant nest might be.
Search for a Nest
The ants that you see in your home are likely worker ants. These ants can travel far from their home base, the nest, to procure food or resources. As such, a trail of ants often leads to or away from the colony’s nest. When eradicating ants from your home, nest removal is crucial. Otherwise, you’re only removing adults ants, not their source. Finding and treating the nest is the only way to remove large ant infestations in a home.
Unfortunately, ants are tiny insects, and they’re gifted at building nests in out-of-sight places or hard-to-reach areas. For example, ants can build nests behind drywall slabs, inside roof insulation, and beneath floor tiles. Still, most ant nests will be somewhere dark, cool, and relatively private. Areas near water sources are also popular among most types of ants. If you’re struggling to find the source of your home’s ant infestations, a pest control specialist can help with the search.
Remove Food Sources
After you know what type of ant you’re working with, you can begin removing food sources. Getting rid of the ant’s potential meals could help you quell an infestation, even if you don’t find the nest. Many house ants survive off crumbs, rotting food, and any humidity found near pipes and sinks. Fire ants will eat other insects, as well as any vegetation they can get their appendages on.
Removing every potential food source might not be possible. After all, some ants eat everyday household objects. A group of sugar ants can devour the slightly sweet glue from the back of an envelope in a matter of hours. Consequently, even the cleanest households can become a haven for ants. If you’ve taken every precaution to prevent ants from entering your home, you’ll need to invest in professional pest control services.
Invest in Pest Control Services
Pest control services can help you tackle current infestations and prevent new ones from taking hold. They can also offer pet and child-friendly treatment options to prevent accidental poisonings. Remember, while you can purchase ant-killing pesticides at your local department store, these can pose dangers to household animals and little ones. Professional services are far more trustworthy and safe.
The best pest control services in Tucson may only be a phone call or click away, so be sure to act now! The longer you wait to address your ant problem, the more severe the infestation can become.
Call Conquistador Pest
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