How to remove ants from an apartment at home
Content
There are several thousand in the world species of antsBut only some of them prefer to settle in apartments, where they are provided with all the conditions for a comfortable existence: it is warm and satisfying here. But the owners usually do not like it - they are persistently looking for ways and means of how to get rid of ants in the apartment so that they do not crawl into products and spoil things.
What ants settle in apartments
Most often, the residential premises are settled redhead or orange ants, which do not live in nature, but have adapted to inhabit only human living conditions. They were also mistakenly called pharaoh due to the fact that in the 19th century they were first discovered in Egypt. In fact, these insects in large numbers lived in India, where on ships in the 18-19 centuries. were imported to Europe, where they multiplied at home in unbelievable quantities, settling closer to warmth and food.
Sometimes in apartments you can meet and black antshowever, they mostly live in nature: in the forest or on the garden plots. They arrange colonies in boxes closer to the grits, along the baseboards, near the sink or in the bathroom between the tiles.
Interesting!
The color of ants is influenced not only by their specific features, but also by food: the color of the red body can turn pale and it turns out yellow ants, black individuals are also able to lose a little color and become brown.
Another color that occurs infrequently is transparent or white ants, they are found in packaged bread, sweets, in medicine boxes.In central Russia, white insects can only be in the “infancy” age, on the first day of life. Although in the Central Asian countries there are white termites.
The answer to the question of why these pests appear is quite simple: after all, they need to eat and live, preferably in warmth and comfort. But where the ants come from and how the ants enter the apartment can be explained as follows:
- in apartment buildings - from basements or from neighbors;
- through vents or slots in the floor or walls;
- accidentally recorded on clothes or shoes.
Red-headed aliens, seemingly innocuous, may well destroy or spoil the food in the apartment, delivering a lot of inconvenience to the owners to even get into bed. They climb into the bags of garbage, and then run to enjoy the sweet sugar on the dining table, carrying harmful bacteria on their paws. Therefore, any owner will try to get rid of household ants as soon as possible.
Different ways of dealing with ants
If ants start up in an apartment, then you can deal with them using various methods:
- Chemicals in the form of aerosols,containing poisonous insecticides - are fast-acting and fairly effective means, but they act directly only on working individuals, and uterus, sitting in the nest and producing offspring, quickly restore the number of ant colony in the apartment. Most Popular: Spray Raptor, Reid, Get, Dichlorvos etc. Their disadvantage is a strong concentration of poison, which is dangerous for pets and small children.
- Insecticidal agents in the form of gels or baits: Raptor, Fas, Globol, A great warrior, Clean house and others. Gels are applied with small strokes in areas inhabited by apartment ants. Such a remedy for ants in the apartment works as follows: with the help of smell, it attracts pests, then the workers take a portion of the poison, transfer the other to the anthill on their paws, where all the inhabitants and the ant uterus are poisoned. The disadvantage of this method is a longer duration (about 2-4 weeks).
- Some of the most inexpensive means by which ants can be removed from an apartment are insecticides in the form of powders or pencils: Mashenka, Clean house, Delitsion, Fas Double. They are applied or scattered on ant paths, from which the running insects eat poison or carry it to the nest. Such drugs are less toxic, but require several treatments and are valid for 1-2 months.
- Shopkeepers traps the poison is similar in action to the gels, only they are closed and therefore inaccessible to animals, and indoor ants crawl into them through the hole and get poisoned. These include: Raptor, Thunder, Combat and etc.
- The most effective method to get rid of these insects forever is the call of the disinsection service, which gives a 100% guarantee of the destruction of ants in an apartment, but this method has a high cost and requires preparation of the premises and the absence of owners for the duration of the treatment.
- Use of ultrasonic repeller. Opinions about the effectiveness of the device are contradictory.
On a note!
In an apartment building, it will be more efficient to fight ants by negotiating with neighbors who also suffer from pests. And then to make chemical treatment at once several apartments and basements.
Folk methods of struggle
Many apartment owners who have small children or pets prefer fight ants folk remedieswithout using toxic substances. There are many such methods, they are quite effective and will allow to get rid of pests using various available substances:
- The most effective means for the destruction of the ant population - use of boric acidwhich is completely harmless to people and animals living in an apartment. For the preparation of poison: in a mixture of 1 tsp. boric acid and 1 tbsp. 1 tsp of water is added. sugar or jam for bait. After thoroughly stirring the solution, it is applied on baseboards and ant tracks, you can pour a little in the plates and put it near the nest. Another method involves mixing boric acid and boiled egg white, which is molded into small balls and laid out along the paths of insects in the room. Gradually, the ants will eat poison and will transfer its parts to their colony, whose inhabitants will also be poisoned and die a few days later.
- Substances like borax or yeast: They are mixed with sugar or minced meat.After eating such bait, insects die within a few days.
- To get rid of ants in the kitchen, you must always remove all food residues, and hide the most attractive sweets in closed containers.
- To scare away red strangers, they use various strongly smelling herbs and foods: wormwood, parsley, garlic, red pepper.
- Treatment of accumulations of small ants and their paths with solutions of vinegar or ammonia, which will help scare away ants through a sharp smell;
Important!
Different ways of scaring off ants are able to help in a situation where ants have just appeared in the apartment, before they even have time to build nests, otherwise such methods will not be effective.
- If the nests of ants are found, then you can destroy them yourself mechanically, pouring boiling water or treating this place with sharply smelling substances: turpentine, kerosene, etc. The most important thing is to destroy the ant uterus so that the colony cannot recover.
Preventing ants in the apartment
In order for ants not to start in the apartment, it is necessary to exclude the reasons for their appearance, i.e.not provide them with food that they can find within the apartment. To do this, in all living rooms, in the kitchen, bathroom or toilet, you must:
- keep the room clean;
- seal all gaps in window openings, air vents, floor and walls;
- always clean food in inaccessible places, wipe the kitchen table and cabinets;
- after each meal, wash dishes and clean crumbs and leftovers;
- take out the trash daily, especially food waste.
The best way to combat insect pests is to prevent them from entering your apartment, keeping them clean and scaring off with all known methods.