Ants may be tiny, but they can be an enormous nuisance inside your home. Because they’re attracted to food, sugar, water, and shelter, you may be accidentally creating the perfect place for ants to thrive. In order to get rid of the ants in your home, you’ll need to determine what’s attracting them — and you may need to call a professional pest control company for help. EcoCare Pest Control has over 22 years of experience in the Portland and Vancouver areas handling ant infestations, and we’re here to help you find out why ants keep invading your home.
How do Ants Get In Your House?
Ants are very small, and they can crawl through the tiniest cracks to enter your house. Ants are foragers that search for food and water, and they’ll happily tell their friends when they find a sticky sugar residue, some cookie crumbs, or a leaky pipe. There are several things that can quickly lead to an infestation.
Greasy or Sticky Surface
Ants are happy to eat honey or jam right off the jar, and they love it when syrup drips down the side of the container. Because of this, it’s important to keep bottles and jars clean after every use, as well as wiping down kitchen surfaces after they’ve been opened. By keeping sweet treats cleaned and in sealed containers this will keep ants from being attracted to your pantry or kitchen counters.
Leaving Out Food
Food crumbs, fruit, and other sweet treats make for a delicious feast for ants. In fact, leaving them out is an invitation for all sorts of pests to enter your home. To avoid an ant infestation, put away food as soon as you’re finished eating, and keep everything in sealed containers. That way, your fruit and sugary treats will only be accessible to humans and not colonies of ants.
Leaky Pipes
Ants and insects need a water source to survive, and they’ll thrive in damp areas with standing water. Check pipes, toilets, and faucets in your bathrooms and other areas of your home to make sure everything’s watertight. That way, you can keep ants from taking up residence in your home.
Sticky Garbage
Ants are okay with climbing inside your garbage to find a tasty treat. To minimize the chances of having an ant infestation, make sure you regularly wipe down the inside of your garbage and rinse out sticky containers before they get thrown away.
Decaying Wood in Your Yard
The moisture in a wood pile after a storm makes the perfect hideout for carpenter ants. If you have decaying wood on your property, you should have it removed or stacked far away from your home. That way, ants won’t have a reason to build nests anywhere near the threshold of your house.
Solutions to an Ant Infestation
Water, shelter, and foods especially high in sugar are necessary for ants to survive. They’re smart critters, and they know how to seek out a good place for their friends and families to survive. If your home offers sweet, sticky surfaces or puddles of water under the sink or around the base of your toilet, then you shouldn’t be surprised if ants start to appear. In order to keep your home safe from an ant infestation, it’s important to keep surfaces clean and dry and thoroughly inspect any spaces. Often, a pest control company will be necessary to completely eliminate an infestation in your home.
Preventing an Infestation Before it Even Start
There are several ways to prevent an infestation in your house. Ants forage for food throughout the spring and summer months, and they follow their friends to find food and water. In fact, if one ant finds a snack, he will leave a trail of pheromones so that his friends can find their way as well. That’s why ants are seen marching in a line toward a piece of candy or other sweet treat that’s been left behind. To keep ants from invading your home, seal food containers, clean countertops, and sweep crumbs from the floor and behind your appliances.
At EcoCare Pest Control, we offer exterminator services to effectively treat the exterior and interior of your homes. That way, your home will remain ant-free.
Ant Problem? We have the Solution!
Ant infestations can be a seasonal issue or a year-round problem. Don’t let insects take over your home. At EcoCare Pest Control, we offer the right solutions to keep your home comfortable and pest-free. Contact us today to schedule a free inspection or quote on your extermination service.
