Would you like to have an ant-free home where those little pests are not always showing up? If you’re tired of having ants appear every time a little food is left out or there are crumbs on the counter, then we have some helpful tips for you to follow. Once ants get into your home, it can be difficult to get rid of them. However, if you follow our guidelines, you shouldn’t have an ant problem for much longer.
Get Rid of Ants in Your Home
Secure Your Food Properly
If you want to stop seeing ants in your home, you have to deal with them at the food source first. Otherwise, the ants will just keep coming back because they know they can get food easily in your house. So, look through your kitchen and anywhere else you store food and make sure that all containers of food are closed tightly. Ants don’t need much space to get in and access food. Even if they can’t get back out, they’ll keep coming into your kitchen for accessible food.
You’ll want to close food containers in your fridge as well, making sure that nothing is left uncovered. All spices and seasonings in your cupboards should be closed too. If any food containers or boxes are leaking, you can place them into a resealable plastic bag to keep ants away. Whenever you store food on your countertops, make sure the lids are closed securely and there is no way for ants to get in. This should be one of the last things you check in your kitchen each day and something you inspect after each meal. If you do this religiously, it will be tough for ants to find food in your home.
Clean Up Messes Quickly
Any time food spills in your home, it can leave behind crumbs, stains, and tasty morsels for ants to eat. You want to clean these up as soon as you notice them. When food falls in the kitchen, make sure you clean under the counters and along the corners so that no crumbs are left behind. Wipe up any spills immediately so that a sweet, sticky residue is not left behind to attract ants.
Staying on top of spills and getting rid of them quickly can be difficult at first, but if you keep cleaning supplies on hand and have the mindset that you will clean spills immediately, you can quickly get this problem under control.
Keep a Clean Home
One of the best things you can do for ant prevention in the home is to keep the place tidy. Make sure you are cleaning regularly, or you can call in professionals to do it for you. Phoenix same day cleaners can help you keep up with all the cleaning that you need done when it’s too much for you to handle.
Your house cleaning should be thorough, if you want to keep the ants out. It can help to restrict where food is allowed to be eaten in the home, and if you limit it to just the kitchen and dining room, that will give you fewer places to look for crumbs and spills. Even leaving empty wrappers in different rooms of the house can attract ants to those places. By limiting where food is eaten, you can focus your ant elimination efforts in just the rooms where food might be.
Part of keeping a clean home is ensuring that all trash bins are emptied when they get full or when they smell bad. You also need to keep trash bins covered so that no ants can get in. You will always be attracting ants if you give them a way to find a food source in your home, and they will find food wherever you place it if it is not properly secured. That includes your garbage bins.
Eliminate the Source
If you have tried everything on this list already and you still have an ant problem, you may need to look for the source of the ants. You can follow the trail of ants from your home back to where they come from. That could be somewhere inside your house or out in the yard. Use bug spray to destroy the nest, if you can find it. If you can’t locate the ant nest, you may need to call in pest control to deal with the problem.
Eliminating the nest will get rid of your ant problem, at least for a while. That doesn’t mean you can be lax in your other preventative measures for keeping ants away, but it should give you a break from the ants.
If you are going to destroy the nest, you need to use something that will penetrate deep into the ant tunnels. Bug spray might work, but it may not get deep enough to do the job properly. Just filling the ant nest with water can help, and boiling hot water will kill them faster than room temperature or cold water.
Confuse the Ants
Maybe you don’t want to kill ants, but you want to keep them away. You can do that by putting down something strongly scented outdoors where the ants tend to congregate. Your used coffee grounds make a great distraction, as they produce scents that will throw off food trails for the ants. Ants aren’t attracted to coffee grounds and don’t use them as a food source, but the strong smell can make it difficult for them to track sources of food inside your home. If you know where the ants tend to hang out or you find their nest, place coffee grounds nearby to confuse them.
These are a few ways you can deal with your ant problem and keep ants out of your home. While ants may not be harmful to you, they can be annoying, especially when you’re trying to keep a clean home and a sanitary kitchen. With the methods we have provided, your ant problem should be over quickly.
