We asked pest experts how to really get rid of kitchen ants – here's what they said

How can ants always be heroes of children and movies, but when they find them in real life in the kitchen, they may be six -legged supervile?

But you don't have to share your chamber with these eusocial threats. With a little knowledge, the right tools and a lot of perseverance, you can show you unwanted guests.

We talked to two experts with an entomologist and Terminix technical director-how to get rid of ants in the kitchen, chamber, living room, corridors, bathrooms and home wherever you want to be involuntarily.

How do ants get into your home?

Above all, the cartoon picture with which he wore an antenna helmet, sniffing with the antenna, then commanding his followers, his home, grill or picnic? According to scientists, this is obviously not the case in real life. “It is not that food is detected from the outside,” says Molly Keck, Texas A & M Agilife Extension Entomologist and an Integrated Pest Program specialist outside San Antonio. “They feed and then make a trail. It is not like bees who make more of the scouts and the back.”

In fact, it is often the case that ants get less in the house that is in it than to escape outside– “They may enter due to outdoor floods because it is freezing outside, or because it is a drought,” says Keck.

According to Cody James Pace, the associated entomologist and Terminix's market director, the ants find the house through the walls, doors and windows. “If after the internal entry, the ants can create trails along the base tables, locations and food storage areas,” Pace explains. “Ants can get into their home quickly and quietly” – placing pheromones for other ants from their colony. “Most ants are just an unpleasant problem, but if they find it in the chamber, they can get into open food tanks and mention anything they find,” he says.

How do you know what ants you have?

If you have an ant in your kitchen, it is understandable that you want to leave you to get rid of getting rid of it, but it's not that simple.

“It really depends on where you are – there are many species, and some parts of the country have species that do not have other parts,” says Keck. “Each species nests differently, feeds differently, and has different control exercises.”

For example, the South Central Texas, who deal with ants in their kitchen, usually struggle with sugar ants, also known as Pharaoh ants; They can also meet crazy ants that create huge swarms in millions or even in the army ants (although the type of army in Texas is almost completely underground and not serious for people).

According to Pace, most American homes are the most common ants for Argentine ants (especially on the west coast), fragrant house ants, pavement ants, carpenters, fire ants (especially on the bay) or crazy ants.

“For proper identification, they often require a certain degree of magnification, where the exoskeletone properties, such as grooves, the number of antennas segments, and the number of nodes in the segment between the chest and the abdomen (such as waist bumps) must be examined,” he says.

Of course, considering it is over 15,000 known ants species And not all of us are entomologists, the question is not to pull the Latin name of the infection with the help of the same magnifying glass that he uses for the stamp collection. But you can try to achieve a local extension service, which you need to know which species are likely to deal with the area and recommend the best ways to eliminate your home. You can also talk to professional destroyers who can visit their home and set up the right treatment themselves – of course for a prize.

Finally, the most important thing is to know that all ants (and all pests and even animals in general) are looking for three basic things. “It must be food, water and harbor,” says Keck. “If these three things are available in a home, so they will be there.”

For food, “(a) ll, they prefer different things,” says Keck. “If you are on your cake, you know they are in sweet stuff. If they are on potato chips, you know they are in greasy things. But there are other ants (these) are just because they are cold outside and found a cozy place in your house.”

Pace notes that most ants are attracted to sugary foods as they provide a quick, efficient source of energy for nonstop workers. Especially if a colony is high and you need to maintain your workforce – usually later in the summer – the feed of carbohydrates that are transformed into sugar. The main exception during rapid growth periods when the colony focuses on the production of eggs; At this stage, ants are looking for protein to support the necessary growth.

How to get rid of ants in your home?

After figuring out what the ants eat, remove that food source. Then it's time to get rid of the chemical markers that the initial ants left to the rest of the colony. Vacuum is the ant trails (whatever ways you have seen the ants, because the pheromones that leave others from their colony remain, but follow the crumbs and ants) and wipe the area with soapy water. Do not use fragrant soap or chemical cleaners that may contain scents that can actually attract more ants.

Find out where the ants get into the house by following their paths or looking for gaps on the outside, then ruining these holes or plugged in with the petroleum gel. Then try to lay down the ant bait, which will work on many ants. Among the popular and easily accessible brands TerroTo Hot shotTo Raid and HomesOr

“Bait is a key tool for treating ants, and in most situations, the only type of insecticide is recommended,” says Pace. “The ants are attracted to the bait and recruits other workers. The workers are retracted by small parts of the bait into the nest, where they are placed in their mouths to other workers, larvae and queens to kill the entire colony.” Baits are safer and more efficient than sprays, but this is partly because it acts slower-the feed is that feeds bring the poison back into the nest rather than die immediately. As the baits take time, further wipe these ant trails until the bait begins to enter into force on the next few days and weeks.

If you see the increase in the number of ants or ants, it is a huge swarm, whatever evidence that ants are actually nesting inside the building, structural damage to the house or other serious questions, call professional help.

What about Boax, baking soda and other home -made medicines?

While the two experts you talked to to give the ants to get rid of the ants are swearing with homemade solutions. One frequent DIY To get rid of ants, the winex – also called boric acid, is a mineral salt consisting of boron, sodium, oxygen and water. The idea of ​​attracting the ants to the sugar and swallowing the sugar and boric acid mixture, then return to their colony and spread the poison to other ants, including the Queen.

However, there are some problems with this method. First of all, Boax can be toxic to people – especially infants – and pets if not applied properly. In addition, it is not always easy to know how much to use; Too much can cause ants at all not eat the bait or die before returning to the colonies, and this can be too little the mixture. Various ants can last longer to react to the poison and some do not react at all. And, of course, not all ants attract sugar, in which case the mixture would not be tempted. Both keck and Pace only recommend using boric acid when the product is tagged as a pesticide and has attractivenessOr

Other home medicines include mixing baking soda (another mineral salt) with confectioners with sugar, which is again a problem for ants who are not attracted to sugar. Solutions of vessel soap, vinegar and baking soda remove the abandonment of pheromone trails, making it harder, but it still does not prevent them from coming through holes or through the flaws of windows and doors.

How to prevent ants from entering the home?

What if you want to ensure that you never have an ant problem?

Assuming that basic precautions (holes, broken windows, doors thresholds, etc. alarms) and practicing basic wastewater treatment (do not miss food, save regularly), the fact that ants will at least occasionally enter their house Equality, the microbroprocessor, and do not live in your life.

“You can try to close things, but the ants are small, so it's almost impossible,” says Keck. “I'm not sure if there is something to prevent, besides just taking care of the problem when it comes to the conclusion that this is a problem for you … In the south, when the fire ants get in. In addition, there are not many preventive things you can do. Invent how you get them, they don't.

Can you get rid of ants?

In people's long-term war, the ants always win, says Keck. You will never get rid of all the ants that threaten your chamber.

“If you can do this, you have to rub the world,” he says. “Some ants pick up the baits, others don't. Some ant can spray the trails, others when they spray them, they budge.” Through the “beginner”, the ants begin to light their original path and create new ones, making them even harder to eliminate them.

And even if you have removed all the food from your home and eat every meal, home ants will do what they do best: survive. They simply continue the feed for foods outside, be it vegetables, mushrooms or other insects. And when you have the opportunity to attack her home again – and inevitably break down and order a pizza, they return.

How can an ant picnic be?

So far, we have only talked about staying at home. But when you are picnic outside, you are the one who pushes the ants ” home.

“If you don't want ants on picnic, don't eat outside where they are,” says Keck. “If you go there with the food, you have to count on you to come to you.”

The one can be taken

Ants are the inevitable facts of life. They roamed us well on the ground and will continue to do so long after the last man has disappeared – in many ways this is the planet of ants, and we are the annoying new intruders. In order to handle the ants that have been built, try to identify the type of ants entering your house, and then be careful to eliminate their food sources, vacuum their trails, close home deficiencies where they can be placed, and keep the bait clean. With a little knowledge, a little little thing, a lot of patience and realistic expectations, you can advance to keep the ants in the outside door.

2024 August