When you think of pests in your home, ants tend not to be the first species that springs to mind. While they are less destructive and transmit fewer diseases than other vermin, ants can skill cause issues.
If an ant colony invades your space in search of food, or worker ants build a nest in your garden or even inside your building, it can cause distress and damage for both homes or businesses.
Ants can contaminate food and generally make your space look and feel untidy, so it pays to get rid of them quickly.
As professional pest control providers in Maidstone and Kent who specialise in ant control, Pest-Tech is here to help you understand why ants enter your home and how to get rid of ants safely and effectively.
What Attracts Ants?
Like many pests, ants are attracted to food, and will go scavenging anywhere in search of a source of nourishment.
While their diet is dependent on their species and life cycle stage, ants will eat almost anything, including sugary foods, grains, and even other insects.
The most common species found in the UK are black ants, which eat mostly organic matter and sugar, but you can also find fire ants, which are more carnivorous and will eat protein such as other ants or insects.
While it is a common misconception that carpenter ants eat wood, they actually just chew it to gain access to your property and build tunnels.
In homes, most ants will go looking for dried foods or sugary substances, and will scour kitchens and communal rooms, such as living rooms, in search of crumbs or open packets.
As well as food, ants also need water, so they will look for damp spaces with access to water, such as pet bowls and puddles left in bathrooms.
How Do Ants Get Inside Your Property?
Ants can get inside through a number of different entry points. In some cases, these might include open doors or windows, particularly in the summer months.
Additionally, you might notice tiny ants crawling through even minute cracks in your brickwork. Once a single ant finds a source of food, they will use pheromones to create ant trails, which let other members of the colony know to follow them.
This will lead to lines of ants going in and out of your property, which can look unsightly. As they enter and leave, they may widen existing entry points or find new ones.
Simple Ways To Deter Ants
It’s impossible to fully stop any determined pest from entering your property, but there are some simple ways to deter ants.
Remove Access To Food Sources
The simplest way to deter ants is to remove their access to food. That means storing food items in tightly-sealed containers, and making sure that pet food bowls, bird feeders and other sources of food are kept covered or removed when not in use.
Keep Your Property Clean
Alongside storing food correctly, it also helps to keep your property clean to remove crumbs and debris before it becomes ant food.
Block Potential Entry Points
Because ants use scent trails to attract other ants, any small crack or gap could quickly become a gateway to the entire colony. That means you could go from one ant sighting to a major ant problem quickly. To avoid this, seal entry points and be vigilant. If you see new cracks forming, make sure you fix them quickly.
How To Get Rid Of Ants If You Already Have An Infestation
If you already have ants inside your home, the best solution is to work with an experienced pest control provider like Pest-Tech.
While there are many guides online that suggest solutions such as baking soda, white vinegar, lemon juice, boiling water, cayenne pepper, diatomaceous earth and even fresh mint or peppermint essential oil, the fact is, these are minor irritants for ants.
Ants tend to ignore them, especially once they’ve found a food source. While natural deterrents might seem useful, they aren’t efficient solutions to get rid of a whole colony of ants.
Many of these techniques won’t kill ants, and will just deter them, but they aren’t particularly effective if you’re already dealing with an ant invasion.
With Pest-Tech, you’ll get the support of our professional pest controllers and the benefits of our expertise. Because we are RSPH Level 2 certified, we have access to insecticides that aren’t available to everyone.
Additionally, as our team have expertise removing ants and other pests from homes and businesses across Maidstone and Kent, they know their common hiding places and what is required to get rid of ant infestations for good.
Whether you’re dealing with ants or other insects like bees, wasps, moths, carpet beetles, silverfish, cockroaches or other garden pests, such as ladybirds or spiders, we’ve got the skills needed to rid you of your pest problem.
To book expert ant control services, contact us on 01622 296055 or by emailing admin@pest-tech.org and a member of our team will be happy to help.