The dreaded ant has made its way inside of your home. There are few things as obnoxious as feeling an ant crawling up your leg as you sit on the couch watching your favorite movie. Ants are very small insects and can get inside of your home very easily. Luckily, we are much more intelligent than ants and there are simple ways that you can encourage ants to pick somewhere other than the inside of your pantry to live. Here are some great tips for you to use this summer as you work to keep pesky little ants outside of your home and away from your legs.
Tidiness
It is the worst to realize that ants are probably inside of your home because you are not doing the best job of keeping your home nice and tidy. A Portland pest control expert once told me that one of the main things they find when they go to home for ant removal is that it could have been easily prevented if the homeowner would have cleaned up some of the areas that the ants were using as a food source. Keeping a tidy home free of crumbs and open food is a simple way to encourage ants to live somewhere else. Any areas in your home where you store food need to be kept sealed and clean.
Sealing Cracks
Many people do not realize how many small cracks there are leading inside of their homes. Ants are really little and do not need to have a large opening to make their way inside of your home. If you are starting to notice ants inside of your home look around to see if there are any small openings in your doors and windows. One of the best ways that you can check for openings in your door seal is to turn off the lights and set a flashlight on the other side of the door. If you are able to see light through the cracks of the door, an ant should be able to fit through it as well. Handling these small cracks can make a big difference in the number of ants that you see.
Removing Food Sources
You may not have thought about this, but ants don’t only eat human food. Ants are happy to eat your pets food as well. In fact, it is small and easy for them to carry back to their ant nests. If you are keeping your food bowls for your pets close to an entrance of your home and you have noticed ants, move your pets food bowl to a new location farther from an entrance to your home. You may quickly be surprised how many fewer ants you notice inside of your home. Ants can sense the food source near the door, if they can not sense that there is food on the other side of the door they are likely going to move on to a new place to try and find food. It is very simple to relocate the bowls and can make all the difference.