Pretty much everyone knows, generally speaking, what ants are but very few people know all that much about them. Ants, much like spiders, are usually quite helpful creatures, getting rid of a wide variety of other insects that can be irritating, dangerous or damaging to your home and produce. But sometimes ants themselves can invade a home and most people simply have no idea how to get rid of them. So in this article, we will be going through and laying the ground work about the small, black (sometimes red) critters.
Ants are related to both wasps and bees and can generally be distinguished by their size and distinctive mandibles and frontward facing antennae. Ants are social creatures and live in large dwellings called colonies. A single ant or even a very small group is no hazard to you or your home but when an ant colony is built underneath or inside of your home then things get a bit more tricky.
One of the reasons that ants are so prevalent, both benignly, as pest repellent, and adversely, as internal home wreckers, has to do with the fact that ants currently exist in every major landmass on earth. Seldom few places on earth but the very coldest are without them. This long standing dominance all over the entire world is due to their social organization, which allows them to divide labor up in much the same manner that humans due in a way that is the most economical. This allows ant colonies to move very large amounts of resources very quickly and react with overwhelming ruthlessness and precision when they need to defend their nests. Almost everyone has seen a lone ant facing off against something like a grounded wasp or large spider. The larger insect almost invariably wins but is usually swarmed quite quickly, broken up into pieces and transported meal piece back to the hive nest.
So what to do in the face of such overwhelming numbers? One, you can take on the ants themselves, or two, you can hire a trained and licensed exterminator. Option two is usually the best course of action as it will often be the quickest and the most likely to succeed. This is simply because of the experience and training which most exterminators have or go through on the job. Both are viable and both will take up considerable resources. But for the sake of brevity let us go through the DIY method first. Lacking the sophisticated tech and chemical equipment that most exterminators will have the layman must search the local stores for his or her weaponry. But before you do that make sure you actually have an infestation not just a small group of ants looking for food. After establishing that you have an infestation (by noticing continuous mounds of ants or seeing small wood shavings underneath your windows, which is an indication of carpenter ants) the first step is to clean the house. Ants are only in your home for one reason, food. Most ants feed on sugar and grease based items, through them out. Carpenter ants, however, will feed on wood for protein and they will usually require a professional. But for the more common black ant, calk all the entry and exit points in your home that you can find.
This includes but is not limited to, cracks in pavement, open windows, unsealed doors and window bottoms and so on. Once you’ve done this soap and water all the areas you can where you continue to find ants. This method will both eliminate the creature's chemical trails as well as outright kill them.