Surprising Tips to Keep Ants Out of Your Home

Does wet weather bring images of endless battles to keep ants out of your home? Worry no more because the experts at AAI Pest Control have shared some surprising tips to keep ants out of your home for good. Read on and learn what those simple tips are.

Wash Food Containers Before Discarding Them

Those empty soda cans that lie in your trash bin for days before being taken out with the trash may be the reason why ants are a common sight in your home. You see, the sugary contents of food and drink containers attract ants to your home. The first step to effective pest control in Modesto is, therefore, to rinse soda cans and any other containers before discarding them in the trash. This will eliminate the sugary substances that ants feed on.

Use Borax and Sugar to Make an Ant Trap

As we already mentioned, ants are drawn to sugary substances. AAI Pest Control recommends that you make a DIY ant trap out of borax and sugar in order to get rid of all the ants in your home. To make this concoction, mix equal amounts of borax and sugar with water so that you form a thick paste. Pour this paste into a container that can be easily accessed by the ants. The few that find this mixture will leave a pheromone trail that will attract the entire colony to this deadly meal and the problem will be eradicated. However, stay clear of this technique if you have pets or young kids since borax isn’t recommended for use around pets and kids.

Use Vinegar to Protect Your Home from Ants

It is hard to keep ants away if one of their own has found a food source inside your home. This is because the ant will leave a pheromone trail that will serve as a beacon to the other ants in the colony. Modesto pest control experts, therefore, recommend that you disrupt this chemical signature so that other ants don’t find their way in. The easiest way to do this is to spray vinegar around the areas where ant activity was observed. The ants present will scramble to leave that area and you may follow their movement to their nest (which you can then destroy with its resident ant population).

Give Unwanted Ants Cayenne

You can also prevent ants from getting into your home by identifying the entry points that they used to access the home and then spread some cayenne pepper on the perimeter of the home. This pepper repels the ants since it is very strong yet they prefer sugary substances. In fact, you can mix cayenne pepper in hot water and use this mixture to exterminate the ants whose nest or anthill you have located.

Drown Your Ant Problem

Don’t try this tip for the ants crawling on the floors inside your home! Instead, do some detective work and locate the anthill outdoors from which these creatures invade your home in search of food. Once you have found it, get your garden hose and let loose for about ten minutes. For quicker results, Modesto pest control experts suggest that you pour boiling water into the anthill. How much boiled water will be enough? Keep boiling and pouring the water there until no sign of a living ant remains.

As you can see, you may not need expert help if you have an ant problem. Just try one or more of the methods discussed above and the problem will be contained. If the ants or any other pests show up again, just call AAI Pest Control and our experts will get to the root of the problem so that it can be fixed once and for all.