Say Good Riddance To Ants In Your Roseville Home

Ants can do some pretty crazy stuff. Have you ever seen it? Swarming ants gather together and crawl on top of each other to create blobs that look like they belong in a scary movie – and definitely not in your home. Now, imagine that blob of ants inside your outlets or powerboxes. Ants are tiny pests, but they can become a big problem. Electrical currents can pass through a blob of swarming ants and cause a power outage. That's only the beginning. 

Join us today as we take a look at ant behavior, examine why they get into Roseville homes, and consider the surprising ways they can cause trouble. Then, we'll give you five no-nonsense ant prevention tips that will help you keep ants out and tell you how to get rid of ants permanently if you're dealing with a current ant problem. Of course, you can always contact Neighborly Pest Management for assistance with home pest control in Roseville. Our team is your team for solving tough pest problems. Jump to our contact page to get connected with a technician.

One Ant Usually Means More

A common way to start seeing ants is to notice one little ant every once in a while. Perhaps you've noticed one. If so, you may have done as many people do; you may have thought it was a random stray that got separated from the rest of the ants. But workers rarely get lost. Ant workers are continually bumping into each other, grooming each other, and working as a unified team. There is only one kind of worker that gets separated from the group, and it does this on purpose. It is called a scout ant. 

What does a scout ant do? The job of the scout is to find food and liquids. It will travel quite a distance to do this. But a long distance for an ant isn't too far for humans. If you see a scout in your home, there is a good chance it came from a nest near your home or inside your walls.

The scout ants have a bad habit that you should know about if you see one of these ants crawling inside your home. They are what often start ant infestations. You see, in nature, an ant will find a food source far from home and lay down a trail of pheromones as it travels back to the nest. The ant workers follow the trail and work as a large group, dismantling the food and following the trail back to the nest. They'll also do this inside your home. They don't realize it belongs to you.

When ants enter your home in large numbers to get food, they may notice that your home provides an ideal habitat. If they do, certain species will decide to stay and create a nest in your walls. So, if you see a scout ant and you don't already have a nest inside your walls, it is possible that you will soon. It is smart to deal with an ant infestation as soon as you see scout ants. It could save you from having to deal with all of the many problems ants create inside your home.   

Ants In The Home Can Create Many Problems

When ants gather into a giant army and swarm into your home, crawling over each other in creepy blobs and scaring you out of your shoes, you might want to thank them. What? Thank the ants for being a nuisance? Yes. Because many of the ways ants cause trouble are going to happen right under your nose.

• If you get sick more often than you think you should, you may have an ant problem. Ants pick up tiny organisms that are invisible to the naked eye. Some of these organisms are what we call germs. If you come in contact with a germ, you could get a stomachache and not realize that ants are to blame.
• If your floors start to creak or a door starts to stick, you might have a carpenter ant problem. These ants tunnel in wood. When they excavate the wood inside a support beam, it can put stress on your home and lead to many serious issues over time.
• If your alarm clock, stereo, or computer stops working, there is a small chance that ants have gotten inside. Some ants like to get into electronics. When they do, they can accidentally short things out.
  If the lights go out in your kitchen, you might have an ant infestation. Certain ants chew on the shielding of wires, and this can lead to a short.

As you can see, ants can pose serious issues without revealing themselves. It is smart to deal with ants, even when you're only seeing one ant in your home every once in a while. Hopefully, you haven't seen any ants yet, and you've found this article in time to prevent ants from entering your home in the first place. Let's look at how to keep ants out of the house using smart and all-natural pest management methods.

Five No-Nonsense Ant Prevention Tips For Around The House

We pointed out that scout ants look for food and liquid in your house, which is how an infestation can begin. So, we should start with that. What do ants eat and drink? On the outside of your home, ants eat things like insects, other bugs, sweet nectar, honeydew, seeds, fruit, and nuts. When they get into your home, they'll look for things that resemble their natural food sources, such as sweet condiments, cereal, bread crumbs, and fruit. Step one is to address food sources.

1. Remove Food And Liquid

• Address exterior food sources, such as weeds and aphids.
• Address indoor food sources by cleaning floors, vacuuming, and wiping down shelves.
• Clean honey jars and other containers that can provide a source of food.
• Check wastepaper baskets for food, such as apples or banana peels.
• Repair any leaky faucets to remove the tiny droplets of water that will remain in your sinks. Ants can pick those droplets up and carry them back to their nest.
• Refrain from leaving juice or other sweet liquids out.
• Consider removing bird feeders from your exterior, including hummingbird feeders, which have sweet sugar water. 

2. Remove The Scent Of Food And Liquid

• Keep your interior trash clean and covered.
• Wash down exterior trash receptacles with soapy water.
• Address ant-attracting scents by cleaning up juice spills and any decaying organic spots, such as the floor where trash bags are set before going out to the receptacle.

3. Protect Food

• Keep food covered when you leave a dish on the counter or kitchen island.
• Store pantry foods in sealed containers.
• Bring food inside after cookouts, or use sealed containers to guard the food.
• 4. Apply Pest-Proofing
• Pull off old weatherstripping and replace it with new strips.
• Replace damaged or worn out door sweeps on exterior doors.
• Patch ripped screens.
• Use a caulking gun to fill in gaps and holes, or apply a sealant around window frames.
• Use a can of expanding foam to fill in larger voids and openings ants can use to enter your home.

5. Alter Exterior Habitats

• Cut grass, remove weeds, and trim vegetation away from your exterior walls.
• Remove leaf litter and piles.
• Turn lights off at night to reduce insect activity.
• Clean your gutters to remove the damp conditions that can attract ants and other pests to your exterior.

You are almost an expert in ant management. These ant prevention tips can go a long way toward keeping ants out of your home permanently. But, in some cases, ant pressures are higher than normal, or you may not have the time to stay on top of managing the factors that lead to infestations. That is when pest control can help. 

Professional Pest Control Is A Great Way To Keep The Ants Away

How does a pest management professional keep ants out of your home? We target the source of ant problems by reducing the insects and bugs ants eat. We do this by applying spot treatments in your yard and landscaping. On top of this, we apply a liquid treatment to your exterior to help keep ants and other pests from entering your home. During your service visit, if ant mounds or ant activity are noticed, your technician may also use targeted control to eliminate the colonies, such as identifying the ant species and laying down appropriate baits in key areas. All of these control methods work together to stop ants from entering your home.

What if you already have an ant infestation? We inspect the interior, track the activity, evaluate conducive conditions, and apply a multi-pronged control strategy to eliminate the ants. When the treatment is done, we monitor and inspect to make sure no ants remain active inside your home. 

Want to learn more about pest control services in Roseville? We'd love to speak with you about your pest concern. Reach out to Neighborly Pest Management today for assistance.