As a homeowner, you will never want to have ants in your pantry. As they look for food in any area in your kitchen, these unhygienic insects can be dangerous. While worker ants do not damage your home’s structures, they crawl anywhere and everywhere. Thus, they can become carriers of foodborne diseases.
Eradicating ants in your kitchen is hard without the right experience and knowledge of appropriate control techniques. You cannot spray insecticides all over your kitchen and risk contaminating food. Thus, you must look for ways to safely eliminate ants. With the help of a pest control company in Rockville, you can safely treat an ant infestation in your house. Below are some measures you can follow:
Get Rid of their Food Source
Clean spills and food crumbs to limit the access of ants to food. Also, you must store your food and leftovers inside airtight containers or sealed plastic bags. Ants have different food preferences. They are usually drawn to sweet and starchy food such as honey, cornmeal, and sugar. However, they can also eat anything they can find such as pet foods and dead insects. To make your home less attractive to these insects, wipe all smears, splatters, and spills in your kitchen right away.
Block All Entry Points
You can also eliminate ants in your kitchen by sealing up their entry points. While it is not easy to seal all tiny openings in your home, just try to cover whatever you can in the kitchen. When you spot ants in your kitchen, follow their scent trails to locate their entry points. Check around screens, windows, doors, and frames for crevices and cracks these pests may use to get into your home.
Locate and Destroy their Nest
The ants’ pheromone trail can also be used to locate their nest and colony. Ants emit pheromones that let other worker ants follow them from the colony to their source of food and back. Use this trail to find their nesting sites. If this trail is not available, lure the ants by using sweet bait. Then, follow the ants as they return to their colony.
Once you find the nest, do not attack it right away to avoid getting bitten. You can just go back to it with the right equipment, so you can destroy the nest with an ant killer spray. You can also kill ants with boiling water, diatomaceous earth, and boric acid.
Contact a Pest Control Company
It’s normal to encounter a few ants in your kitchen. However, you may need to take action if you spot more ants frequently. Check around your home for various signs of ant activity and use homemade repellents to prevent them from entering your home. if ants still get inside, leave this type of pest issue in the hands of experts. These experts will create a certain pest control plan that fits your situation and needs. They will consider the circumstances when employing proactive pest control solutions and eliminating an ant infestation.