How To Get Rid of Ants in the House

Ants are never a welcome sight in your home, but with a well-trained eye, you may be able to spot them before you have a serious problem on your hands. Ant infestations take time to get started, with scouts exploring your home before the rest of the colony moves in. But once they do, you can have a serious ant issue on your hands.

Take action before the infestation starts with ant control services in South Florida from Hulett Environmental Services. We’ll teach you what you need to know about how ants get in your home, what they are looking for, and what you can do to keep them away.

How Ants Get Inside Your Home

Ants can appear from practically any corner of your home, but not all ants you see are the same. If you see a few lone ants wandering through your home, it’s likely that only scouts have made it inside. Scouts can travel considerable distances from the colony outdoors, but wherever they go, they leave invisible scent trails behind them.

If they find food, such as an open container of pet food, crumbs on the floor, or any of the ingredients in your kitchen, they’ll travel back to the colony and communicate with the rest. From there, you may be dealing with a full-on invasion. That’s the critical point, because once the colony has fully moved inside, they’re much harder to get rid of.

Ways Ants Travel Through Your Home

A fully established ant infestation can be difficult to track down without proper training and techniques. Ant colonies can live between your floorboards, behind the drywall in rooms, and they can use openings left in the baseboards, around doors and windows, or by wiring and plumbing to travel from room to room without ever being spotted. You may seal up one entry point near a wall, only to find them still mysteriously appearing in another room, coming right out of the carpet.

How To Deter Ants

Learning how to keep ants out starts with understanding what brings them inside. All ants by many names, including sugar ants, black ants, tiny ants, fire ants, pavement ants, and any other variety, look for the same three things: food, water, and shelter. A determined scout will almost always find a way inside, but you can reduce the chance by making sure all your windows are tightly sealed and your doors fit snugly when shut.

What’s important is keeping the scouts from finding what they are looking for, even if a few manage to make it inside. This is why keeping your countertops free from crumbs and spills is so important. Any sugary and nutritious food source, like soda, cereal, bread, or even your pet’s food, can be sniffed out by these hungry scouts, so always make sure that all food is sealed and kept off surfaces.

How Can I Stop Ants Once They’re Inside?

When you start seeing multiple ants—especially in more than one room—it’s time to act. This means the scouts have found something attractive, whether that’s food, water, or somewhere to set up their colony. You can slow their progress by eliminating any ants you see and placing baited traps near areas where they appear. Over-the-counter options may have limited effects, but you may just be able to stop the rest from coming inside.

Once you see columns of ants traveling in rows through your home, you can tell that an infestation has started. In these situations, professional pest control is always the most effective option. Hulett Environmental Services acts fast, targeting the infestation at its source. We use industry-grade equipment and exclusion strategies, even when the infestation is well out of sight. Our ant control treatments are environmentally conscious and highly effective, allowing you, your family, and your pets to get back to enjoying your home quickly.

Schedule Ant Control With Hulett Environmental Services

Ant infestations can spread quickly, but you can stop them with a careful eye and expert help from Hulett Environmental Services. If you are dealing with an ant problem or want to prevent the issue before it starts, schedule your pest control inspection. We’ll walk you through everything you need to know about our ant control process, from which rooms we’ll target to preventive measures you can take once we leave to keep the ants from returning.

Trust the name with 50 years of pest control success behind it. Just call Hulett to get rid of the ants in your home today!