Bright, sunny warm days are when ants are most likely to be active. That’s true when the ants are outdoors, and it’s true when ants are in your home. If you’ve got a sudden ant infestation going on in your home, here’s what you can do to remedy the problem – and when it’s time to call in professional exterminators for ant removal.
DIY Ant Removal Tips: Quick Cleanups Make a Difference!
When ants are on the move, they’re looking for food. Feeding an ant colony, including all of the worker ants who stay in the nest caring for the hundreds and thousands of baby ant eggs, is a big job. If there’s nothing in the house for ants to eat, they’re going to be much less interested in hanging out there.
Clean off countertops, shelves, and any other areas where you’ve noticed ant activity. Once the surfaces are bare, you can spray them with a commercial ant repellent (available at any hardware store) or with a 50/50 mixture of water and vinegar.
This approach generally works with small, weather-based increases in ant activity. These ants are just exploring and when there’s nothing in your home for them, they move on. But some ants don’t want to eat a meal IN your home. Some ants want to eat a meal MADE OF your home.
Ant Removal: When Do You Need an Exterminator? Understanding Infestation.
There are specific circumstances where ant removal is not a DIY job. Professional exterminators are needed in any instances where biting or stinging ants are involved. It’s also appropriate to work with your Massachusetts pest control company when you have carpenter ants in your home.
Carpenter ants are large black ants. They don’t bite people, but they do chew up wooden beams, boards, and planking – basically, the structure of your home. The reason carpenter ants do this is because they nest in wood, rather than in the ground. These nests are extremely large, with tens of thousands of individual ants involved. The scale of the job means you need an exterminator. The good news is that ant removal can be accomplished quickly, using family and pet safe products.