Ant Pest Control To Manage Your Ant Population  

You may not want to hear it but ants do serve a necessary function outside the home like controlling the insect population and aerating the soil.  

On the other hands ants can play havoc in our households or other buildings where they find food and water. Long trails of thousands of ants may lead from nests to food sources, causing great concern to us humans. They also can damage your indoor and outdoor plants. Ants are attracted to honeydew, produced by soft scales, mealybugs and whiteflies, increasing damage from these pests. 

Ants can bite with their pincerlike jaws, although most species rarely do. Ants that sting are usually outdoor species such as the velvety tree ant, native fire ant, harvester ant red fire ant and weaver or green ant. 

There are over 12,000 ant species in the world, but fewer than a dozen are important pests. 

Therefore, your objective should be to not totally eradicate these pesky little critters but to keep them out of your home and immediate lawn area. With effective ant pest control solutions, you can accomplish this goal. 

There are several varieties of ants that are prevalent in the U.S. as well as other parts of the world such as the fire ant, carpenter ant and the argentine ant. Fire ants and argentine ants can usually be treated with over the counter pesticide remedies. But because of their destructive nature, a professional should treat carpenter ants.  

Ant pest control can be pinned down to three basic methods of treatment:  natural or organic measures, contact insecticide and ant bait traps. 

Natural Or Organic Ant Pest Control 

For indoor natural ant pest control, keep a spray bottle of soapy water around and spray the ants as you see them and even spray their normal trail path. Vacuuming up ant trails and mopping thoroughly with soapy water is a very effective way to get rid of ants as it removes the ant’s scent trail.  Some soap products such as window cleaners can kill ants on contact.  

Also, ants hate cucumber and mint so put a few slices of cucumber around any crevices or openings where ants are getting into your home and be sure to replace them every few days. With the mint, you can place fresh mint leaves or crushed mint and sprinkle them in the places where ants are entering your home. 

Outdoors, you can mix a soapy solution and spray around the foundation of your home where ants are entering and even pour the soapy water on the trouble mounds in your lawn. In addition, sprinkle mashed potato flakes, instant rice or Cream of Wheat cereal on the mounds and ant trails so these stinging critters will carry it into the mounds and to the queen. Eating these dried food products will make their tummies swell and possibly burst, effectively killing them. 

Contact Insecticide Ant Pest Control 

In terms of ant pest control, contact pesticide exists in a variety of formats like dusts, sprays, aerosols and granules. With this type of ant pest control, the ants must come in contact with these various forms of insecticide in order to become debilitated and die. Ants must be sprayed on directly or one of these contact insecticides must treat the visible ant paths and trails so that the ants can carry these poisons on their feet and bodies into their mounds. 

Ant Pest Control Using Bait Traps 

Ant pest control using ant bait traps can be effective in the long run and come in forms such as liquid, gel, granules and solids. Basically, the purpose of ant bait is to provide a lethal food source for ants that can be transported back to the mound for the queen as well as the larvae. Ant baits do not kill ants on contact but serve to effectively kill ants where they live and cut off ways for them to reproduce. If the ant larvae and the queen ingest this ant bait, they die, thus neutralizing that mound. 

Keep in mind that it might take a few attempts using various forms of ant pest control before you hit upon a solution that works. During this experimenting, be sure that your children and pets are protected and that you also work to eliminate those entry points into your home.