Why Won’t My Ant Problem Go Away?

As simple as it sounds, making ants disappear from your home or property isn’t always an easy accomplishment. More than likely, the problem centers around a lack of knowledge of the activity and behavior of ants. Homeowners quickly learn that just killing the visible ants marching across the kitchen floor does not successfully end the ant problem.

One must first of all identify which species of ant has invaded the home. Of all the species that exist, they can be categorized as a nuisance ant or a destructive ant. Carpenter ants, for example, are destructive and must be treated differently than nuisance ants such as odorous house ants or pavement ants.

Albeit, regardless of the species, the main reason for an ant invasion is their quest for food and water. An ant can gain entrance through even the tiniest of openings or cracks. They can also nest anywhere in and around your home. Their nests can be found in lawns or stumps, in walls and under foundations. To understand the magnitude of an ant invasion problem, it should be understood that an ant colony will sometimes contain as many as 500,000 ants. The worker ant within the colony can live up to 7 years while the queen may live as long as 15 years.

The population of the ant colony is comprised of three castes: queens, workers and males. The queens are fertile females that stay in the colony and produce eggs. The workers are females that are not capable of reproducing and devote their life to foraging and gathering food for the entire colony. The worker is also responsible for feeding the larvae and taking care of the nest. The males are winged ants and only have one purpose and that is to mate with the queens during the swarming process.

It is important to understand this arrangement of the ant colony because the only way to solve an ant problem is to find and exterminate the entire colony, including the reproducing, egg-laying queens. This is why the do it yourself techniques are usually ineffective. Most of those methods only kill the visible ants and never destroying the entire ant population. Contact Action Pest Control for effective ant control treatments to eradicate your problem.

A final thought to making the ant problem go away is to seal off all points of entry and eliminate all sources of food and water. Ants will not stay in places in which there is no available food or water. Keep all food put away and crumbs and spills cleaned up. Seal left over food and pantry foods in pest proof containers. Look for even the slightest leak under faucets and drains and repair as needed. Inspect the home, both inside and outside, looking for any possible points of entry and seal shut with silicon caulking. Following these preventive measures along with consulting your pest management specialist will help your ant problem disappear.