Keeping Ants Out of Your House This Summer
As the weather warms, ants are waking from their winter slumber and preparing to invade your home. These nasty pests spend their summers actively finding food to make it through their hibernation, and your favorite treats are fair game. Once one ant finds your secret stash he’s bound to tell his friends, leading to a full-blown insect invasion. Keeping ants out of your house at that point becomes more difficult. Keep the following tips in mind to ensure your home isn’t infiltrated by ants this summer.
Keep Kitchen and Eating Areas Clean
The kitchen holds most of the foods these little insects will seek out, so hygiene in this room is especially important during Utah summers. Ants can feed on anything from the food scraps on your plates to grease splattered on your stovetop, so clean up quickly after meals. Foodstuffs often linger on garbage cans, so make sure these are regularly cleaned inside and out with disinfectant.
Don’t forget other areas where you eat. Your dining room, alfresco dining areas, and the couch where you enjoy snacks by the TV are all places where foodstuffs can lurk. Make sure you keep these areas clean and crumb-free.
Put Opened Foods in Airtight Containers
Airtight Food Containers Photo by stebulus Remembering to use food containers consistently will cut down on how often ants find food in your home, which should mean less frequent ants.
In winter, you can get away with stashing half-opened containers in your pantry. But once the ants wake up, those open packets become fair game. Go through your pantry and tip any open boxes and packets into air-tight containers. These containers won’t just keep your foodstuffs away from hungry ants. They’ll also keep your foods fresher.
Minimize Moisture Inside and Outside Your Home
Water is essential for these critters survival, so it’s important to minimize excess moisture inside and outside your home. Assess each room and pinpoint any problem areas. Replace washers causing leaky faucets and fix leaky pipes. Don’t forget about the roof; water leaks here can be easily overlooked. Also, make sure your gutters and downspouts are directing rain away from your home.
Make It Hard for Insects to Enter Your Home
The tiny holes, cracks, and gaps in your home’s exterior are the perfect entryways for worker ants. Keeping these insects away from your home becomes more difficult in summer because they are a lot more active in the warmer weather. So summer is the time to seal those areas and make your home impenetrable. Use weather-stripping to seal the gaps around doors and windows. Apply sealant to close holes where wires, pipes, and conduits enter your home.
Pruning back your trees won’t just make your gardens look neater this summer. It’ll also cut short the paths many ants use to reach your home. This can be quite effective at controlling ants, although if you’re reading this, they may have already found a way in. Many ants follow chemical scent trails other ants leave on trees to reach residential properties. You can further foil their plans by removing these scent trails using a damp washcloth or sponge. If it’s too late this summer, take these steps anyway, and put them on your list for a check in early spring next year, so next summer is easier, and in the meantime, try some the next tips, or even call us here at Beeline.
Lay Traps, Baits, and Gels
Supermarket shelves have a range of ant solutions designed to keep your home free of these nasty insects. Commercial traps will lure in ants and keep them, prisoner, preventing them from infiltrating the rest of your home. Alternatively, you could try baits and gels, which both contain a slow-acting poison. The ants eat a little of the bait or gel and take some back to their nest. Since the poison is slow acting, it doesn’t kill the ants right away. Instead, it gives the ants the opportunity to share the fatal treat with their friends. Use a combination of indoor and outdoor ant solutions for the most effective home protection.
Get Rid Of Insects & Bugs- Call the professionals
Once an ant infestation takes hold, these pesky insects can be virtually impossible to remove. That’s when Beeline Pest Control can help. With our specialized knowledge, we can identify the specific ants plaguing your property and put a plan in place for driving them out. To get rid of ants, call us at (801) 204-9134 to eradicate ants and other pests from your home. It’s never easy keeping ants out!