Ants are one of the most visible pests in human habitats. If there are some food spills in your kitchen or dining room, you often see these pests instantly emerge from nowhere. You may often wonder where are they coming from and how do they sense about food sources.
Most pest ants get attracted to sugary foods, and their ability to detect chemical substances within their environment helps them to find foods. These ants have olfactory receptors – with an exceptionally high sense of smell – that help them to locate the foods by smelling them. Some pest ants do not just consume food but also make painful bites and cause significant property damages that often demand professional pest control Melbourne, London, New York, or anywhere else.
Regardless of the ant species, everyone wants to remove pest ants from their property. Here are a number of tips to control pest ants at your property.
Remove Any Food Sources
Greasy, sugary foods attract pest ants, and they find ways to your kitchen and dining hall quickly. A great way to control ants in your property is securing all your foods. Keep your foods in air-sealed containers, mop the floors and kitchen work area at regular intervals, and ensure that ants do not have any easily accessible foods in your property.
Also, secure pet foods when not in use, clean the pet food containers regularly and remove trash from the property. Never pile uncleaned dishes in your kitchen; run your dishwasher daily. As long as you keep your property and premises hygienic and clean, you won’t experience extensive ant infestation issues.
Importantly, the cleaning shouldn’t be just limited to the indoors but the outdoors as well. You should remove any wood logs and trashes that can become the potential locations for ants to make their nests. Always keep your yard clean and well-maintained to make ants less attracted to your property.
Seal Cracks And Dehydrate Property
If you see ant infestation at your property, check for their entry points. If you see some small cracks, openings, or crevices in the walls or floors, seal them to control the entry of these pests. You may find cracks and crevices around windows and doors as well as on the foundation. You can use caulk or other sealing materials to block these entry points.
Do you know that ants prefer to live in places with high humidity? You can minimise the moisture level at your property in a number of ways. Firstly, you check for all the possible sources of water at your property, including leaking pipes, open water, open fish tanks, and more and repair the pipes and close the water sources. Secondly, properly ventilate your property to reduce dampness.
Also, clean the gutters and downspouts that lead to stagnation of water due to fallen leaves and other debris. If you still see high humidity at your property, you can think of installing a dehumidifier.
Use Natural Ant Repellents
Professional ant pest control services in Melbourne recommend the use of natural repellents to keep ants away from your property. Some of the natural repellents include peppermint, vinegar, lemon juice, cinnamon, and black pepper. You can use these readily-available items in various ways to limit the presence of ants at your property.
You can plant peppermint around your property and/or prepare and apply the mint spray in all the entry points, including windows and doors. Ants hate the smell of peppermint, and you can also add a few drops of peppermint essential oil on the suspected areas of infestation and wipe with cotton to prevent the infestation. It can also make your property smell minty fresh.
If you prefer vinegar, you can mix 50/50 vinegar and water and spray the solution on ants to kill them. You can also use the solution to wipe the infested areas and ant entry points with cotton. Similarly, lemon juice also kills ants and destroys the scent trails of ants. You can mix 10ml of lemon extract with 30ml of water to prepare the spray solution. Apply the solution in all the entry points of your property to repel ants.
The smell of cinnamon can suffocate ants and kill them. You can sprinkle ground cinnamon around ant nests and their paths to make them leave your property. The cinnamon essential oil can also work great against ants, and you can prepare a spray with it and apply around windows, doors, and cracks.
In a similar way, you can sprinkle black or cayenne pepper powder around ant nests and in their paths. You can also mix pepper with water and spray the solution in all the areas you see the traces of ant infestation.
Conclusion
You can also use ant baits – non-toxic to humans and pets – to eliminate ants from the interior. However, if you notice that the ant infestation at your property is extensive or unable to find out the ant nests, don’t hesitate to seek the assistance of a professional pest control service.