How To Do Your Own Ant Control

Ants are the most common pests you will encounter in and around your home.  There are many different methods to use that will help you to do your own ant control.  Ants are foraging creatures that nest in a large colony with a queen as the principle reproducing member.  If you kill the queen then you will eliminate the colony in the long run.  The ants will continue to live in the short term but they will eventually die off.  If you need to eliminate them immediately then you will need to treat the nest.

The best way to control ants is to initially clean the foundation of your home.  When ants are foraging they will leave pheromone trails to and from their nest and the source of food.  When you destroy these trails then the ants will become disoriented and will look for a new source of food.  If you set up multiple bait traps then the ants will find these traps and start eating and gathering the bait from these traps.  This is an excellent two prong attack against almost any ants that you will encounter in or around the home.

The next step is to treat the perimeter of your home so that you will deter / prevent any new ants from entering your home.  This can be accomplished with using either a granule based pesticide or a liquid based pesticide.  These pesticides can be either residual or irritable.  Residual pesticides will not irritate them, it will instead let them by but the ants will be infected by the pesticide.  If the pesticide includes fipronil in it then it will be even more effective against these ‘large colony’ insects.

The fipronil will be passed on from insect to insect and from surface to surface.  If you use a pesticide that irritates the insects then it will keeps the insects out.  They may not be as treated as the residual pesticide will do but you will keep the insects out.  The double advantage with using outdoor bait traps is that it will help you monitor ant activity.  If you see no ants in or around the traps then it means you have killed the ants.  If there are ants around the trap but there is no sign of the bait being eaten then it means the bait is not attracting the ants.  This can be due to one of two reasons, the ants already have an established source of food and they are not interested in the bait, or the bait is of the wrong texture or flavor.  This is common of solid cake based baits, ants do not like this kind of bait and they will prefer liquid baits.

If you are interested in learning more about DIY pest control products you can use to get rid of ants and any other pest.