When you have pests or bugs in your home, it can feel like the one place where you’re supposed to be safe and comfortable isn’t in your domain anymore. So as soon as you notice something like ants or other pests, it’s important that you take action immediately to get rid of these pests before they multiply too much or cause too much damage.
If this is an issue that you’re currently dealing with, here are three tricks for getting rid of ants at home.
Start With The Colony
While it can feel good to crush any little ant that you see in your house, this isn’t the best way to stop your ant problem in its tracks.
According to Jeanne Huber, a contributor to the Washington Post, what you really need to do to stop ants from taking over your house is to start with their colony rather than just the individual ants that you see inside. To do this, you’ll want to lay bait traps that the ants will take back into their colony and poson all of the ants there. These pesticides will make it so both ants that are currently coming in and out of the colony and any eggs there will die off and leave you and your property alone.
Remove Ant Trails
Another step you’ll want to take to keep ants from coming into your home as efficiently as they once were is to remove ant trails that previous ants have left around your home. With these ant trails, ants will follow scents left by other ants to get directly to the food source they’re searching for. But when you remove these trails, you make it harder for them to find food, which may cause them to search in other locations.
To remove these ant trails, Family Handyman recommends that you make a vinegar solution that you spray in any area where you’ve seen ants in your home before. This solution will erase the ant trail and keep ants from coming in and colonizing your home.
Keep Your Home Clean Of Foods
To help keep ants from wanting to come into your home in the first place, Paul Hope, a contributor to Consumer Reports, shares that one of the most important things you can do is to keep your home clean, especially from food particles. By cleaning up any spills or messes as soon as they happen, especially from sugary liquids, you won’t become an easy food source for ants to try to take advantage of.
If you’ve noticed ants in your house and want to get rid of them once and for all, consider using the tricks mentioned above to control these pests around your property.