The arrival of ants in the kitchen, the
bedroom, the porch, or the laundry room is welcome by no one! In fact, the
dreaded annual ant invasion is something most of us fear a great deal. Not
because they can be dangerous, but because as anyone who has experienced it
knows, they are annoying, difficult to get rid of, and it seem like they are
never quite fully gone. Maybe though, when it comes to your past ant
removal attempts, you have been missing a few key pieces of the puzzle.
DIY Methods To Get Rid
Of Ants
Poison
Poison is perhaps the most common and typically, the most successful of the DIY ant control methods. There is a host of different
ant rid poisons, liquids, and sprays that you can buy at your local garden,
grocery, or hardware store. For the most part, these act to kill the ants once
they are in your house. They give off a sweet odour which draws the ant in, and
then it consumes the poison and dies. Others of these are designed to be put
along the perimeter of the area where the ants are getting in, such as window
sills and doors. Once the poison takes effect, you will need to go through with
a broom or vacuum and clean up the dead ants.
Traps
These operate on a similar idea to the poison; luring the ant in, but this time
they crawl into a hole (the trap) and find the poison inside. The benefit of
these is far less clean-up of the carnage after the fact, and they can be safer
in households with young children. Liquid poison is unadvisable for
households where children are crawling around on the floor, or pets are
regularly in and out of the house.
Professional Methods
But let’s
be serious. If you are in the middle of a dire ant invasion, whereby they are
in every crevice, corner, and hole that you turn to, you likely aren’t
interested in fiddling around with hardware store poison and standing in the
aisle at the garden centre trying to decide which of the thirteen different
choices is going to be the most effective.
It is at
this time, that you need to call in a professional. Because, believe it or not,
as much as you detest ants, their presence, and their greedy, black, beady
bodies, there are people who make their living getting them out of your house. And
those are the people that you want to call.
Power Pest Control is a professional extermination
service, specializing in removal of ants, insects, and other pests such as mice
and rats. We are not your standard pest removal service, in that we cater our
services specifically to you: we show up at your house ready to craft an
extermination plan that is tailored to your problem, your house, and your needs, leaving cookie-cutter
services and solutions to the internet. When you call us up, we will do a
complete and thorough assessment of your ant invasion, asking you questions,
spending some time observing, and then making sure that we come up with a
solution that you are happy with and that is going to get the job done effectively
and efficiently. If you don’t believe us, just call us up and see! We will get
to the root of your problem, leaving you ant free, as well as armed with
everything you need to prevent future invasions and keep yourself happily living
in an ant free home.
Preventative
Methods
Speaking of prevention, understanding an ant’s home, food, and lifestyle
preferences, as well as how they are likely getting into your house are key
components of prevention and ant control in your Beaches home. As much as it is
desirable to get rid of the ants, you also want to stop them from coming back
again. Taking a step back to understand the problem from the bottom up is the
best way to do this.
Here are some of the following tips to prevent ants in your home
- Caulk all windows and doors
- make sure that all weather stripping is installed correctly around doors and windows
- seal all cracks around the foundation of the property
- cut back tree branches away from the home so that they do not provide a path line to the house
- make sure that all eavestroughs all draining water properly away from the house
- during and after all rainfalls watch to see if there is any water stains on the wall from water running down from leaks in the eavestroughs
What Do
They Eat?
Ants are notorious for loving sweet foods,
and while this is true, they will generally be attracted to any food residue
that it left available. They will carry crumbs back to their nest, feed off
remnants left on dishes, and try to break down large pieces of food so that it
is a manageable size to eat or to deliver to the queen. In fact, ants are quite
good at working together to get the food that they need, so don’t underestimate
their ability to take in whatever food is left lying around. And once they
successfully find a food source, they remember where it was – and they’ll be
back for more.
Where Do
They Live?
While it may appear as if they live in your
house, ants typically live outdoors in colonies run by the queen ant. These
colonies create nests and reside underground, under cracks in the pavement, and
even in trees. They visit their nest regularly, so even if you are seeing them
in your house, chances are, they are still going back home to their nest
somewhere between your house visits. Alternatively, they may set up a satellite
nest within your house. This reduces the need for them to travel back to the main
nest regularly.
Quick facts about ants in Toronto
Carpenter ants live in moist and rotting wood and in the wood they use it for raising their brood. The ant nest will look like galleries that have been tunneled or channeled through as the ants are pushing the wood that they are boring. There are generally one queen setup per nest will the workers do the bidding of the queen.
Field ants general nest in the soil and if you are looking on your lawn you might see dead patches of grass where the ants will build massive ant hill. You will know that you have an active ant hill because you will see multiple holes in the ant hill where the ants are entering and leaving the ant hill mound
Pharaoh ants generally have large colonies and are usually found in the kitchen areas where the sugars and protein based products are found. They can be found in other parts of the house in search of food and water. They have multiple queens and multiple colonies and the ants that you see your home is only generally 5% of the actual population that will be needed to be eradicated.
Signs of Ant infestation in Toronto
How Can
They Get In?
Because ants are small, there are a host of
available entry options when it comes to them being able to get into your house.
This could be through cracks in your foundation, around door and window seals,
coming in on your shoes from being outside, or getting in through the ceiling. In
some instances, the ants can live in your house for some time, in the roof or
between the walls and you simply never see them. This is especially common with
carpenter or pharaoh ants, the more serious types of ants to concern yourself
with.
In the case of carpenter ants if there is moist wood present and sawdust or frass is present the ants are nesting in that exact location
Ant removal process in Toronto
Gel and bait technique
The process of applying a gel and bait is using different food laced with a poison that the ant will have to take and return it back to the nest to knockout the colony. The ant will return the bait back to the colony and will feed them all where all the ants in the colony will be poisoned. The baits could of protein based or sugar based depending on the feeding habits of the ant.
Advantage
The baits will knockout the entire colony over a period of time. The homeowner does not have the leave the house for a specific period of time while the treatment is taken place
Disadvantage
The ants may not like either type of bait and avoid it all together which will render the ant extermination in your toronto home useless. Also, the process can be very long depending on the size of the ant colony
Liquid residual spray
This process involves provided either a direct targeted spray to a centralized location where the ants are travelling or residual spray along the baseboards and along the perimeter walls of the house. Most times the main active ingredient that is used is pyrethrin; however there are other active ingredients that are just has effective
Advantage
Quick and effective knockdown of ants within your home
Provides a barrier treatment around home to prevent new ants from entering home and ants that are foraging around the home
Disadvantage
The insecticide only kills that ants that are foraging where the spray is applied and not the direct nesting spot if one is not currently visible
Client has to leave home while the spray treatment being done due to odors released by the chemicals
Once we complete a through and detailed analysis of your property we would recommend which option that would be best for your home considering the circumstances around your home
From understanding
their way of living, to successful elimination and prevention, now you are
armed with everything you need to know for successful ant extermination in your
Beaches home. When you are ready to get started, give the Power Pest Control crew a call and we’ll be ready to help you out!