Ants plague afflicts almost every home, and today there are tools to resolve and minimize the nuisance.
Pesticides against ants at home, will usually be by applying a gel that will serve as bait for the ants and thus make them eat from it, transfer it into their nest and eliminate them.
Ants in the house will usually appear in the kitchen area.
They are attracted to the smell of food, and have an unusually developed sense of smell.
They can sense food left out from a great distance, and get to it very quickly.
In addition, ants can also be seen in the house, in other rooms, in the closets in the house, in the gardens and in the yards of houses.
The most common case that invites the ants is, as mentioned, leaving food outside or packing it un hermetically.
home methods
There are several common home methods for ant extermination.
One of the common solutions is to use a mixture of vinegar and water, in order to neutralize the smell of the ants.
Vinegar can deter them for a while, but is not a real and comprehensive solution.
Other ingredients that can be used at home are cinnamon sticks, bay leaves and citrus peels.
All of these natural substances deter the ants and can help keep them away, but not completely kill them.
Cinnamon Sticks – Cinnamon sticks can add a lot of flavors, especially to tea, but for ants it’s a different story.
The strong smell of cinnamon repels them and they will not return to the place anymore.
Scatter cinnamon sticks mostly where you saw the ants (do not need too much, a few sticks will suffice).
Bay leaves – for those of you who do not like the smell of cinnamon, the same method, the same result.
Vinegar – Unlike cinnamon, the smell of vinegar is really strong and unpleasant, both for us and for the ants.
Just as there are humans who are unable to tolerate the smell, so too in ants and therefore it is a highly effective natural pesticide.
Mix water with vinegar, and apply to areas where you have seen ants.
Another option is to add a little vinegar to the bucket when you clean the house, and clean with it.
This will make sure that the ants do not return.
Citrus peels – It’s hard to understand why ants do not like the smell of citrus peels, but it will do the job.
Take a lemon or orange, peel it, and leave pieces of peel in the area where you saw ants.
Another option is to boil the shells in a pot with water, cool the liquid and transfer it to a sprinkler, which will be used by you to spray the ants.
Black pepper / coffee beans / washing powder – everyone has the same effect in removing ants and also the same method of use: just scatter a little in the area of the ants’ nests or where you come across them, it should do the job.
Pest control in natural methods takes several hours so you will have to wait and see if it worked or not.
If you have tried one method that did not work, try scattering them throughout the house and not just in areas where you have seen ant nests, or simply switch to another method.
Gel baits
If the natural methods have not worked for you, or you want to eliminate the ant phenomenon at home without calling an exterminator, you can use the gel.
There is a special gel syringe for ant extermination on the market.
Although this is not a completely natural way, the percentage of toxic substance in the syringe is very low, so it can be bought without the need for an exterminator license or any consent, and can be found in any home store.
The purpose of the treatment is to damage the nest itself, killing the queen directly causes the elimination of the nest (similar to bees).
The great difficulty is in locating the nest itself which can in some cases exist at great depths, in hard-to-reach spaces or at relatively large distances from the house, which complicates locating the nest.
Exterminating ants without destroying the nest may solve the problem only temporarily.
New working-class ants will arrive again shortly and will replace the ants that were destroyed in the initial pest control.
It is important to remember that an adult colony of ants may include hundreds of thousands of individuals and for this reason treatment without destroying the nest will probably not solve the problem.
Pest control using bait gel does not require the removal of kitchen cabinets.
Apply the gel in strategic places that do not pose a danger to humans and are not exposed.
In addition, this pesticide method does not require leaving the house at all.
The gel consists of bait that is in a syringe and is used to kill various species of ants.
The gel contains mostly 95.5% attractants and 0.05% Fipronil/Thiamethoxam/Indoxacarb, which is the active ingredient (poison) itself.
These substances attract the ants, their contact with the substance will lead to their elimination after a while.
Ants exposed to the gel will transfer it to their nest and thus help eliminate the entire nest.
Once the ant path in the house is identified, it is possible to diagnose where their nest is, and scatter the gel capsules near it.
The gel is a solution with zero toxicity that manages to destroy the nest completely – the workers transfer the bait to the nest and feed the queen and the eggs; the destruction of the queen is the key to the total destruction of the nest.
When the queen eats from the toxic substance she dies, and in a situation where there is no queen – there is no nest, and you will no longer encounter ants.
In a period of about 24 hours the queen is destroyed and as a result the colony disperses and the problem is solved.
spray
Ant extermination by spraying is very effective and efficient for a long period of time.
The spray is evenly distributed and penetrates into the floor and walls.
When it comes to ants in an old apartment building, many times the source of the problem is in the walls of the building and treatment with an anti-ant gel application will not necessarily suffice.
As mentioned, a gel application treatment causes ants to move the poison into their nest and thus kills it.
There are cases in which the nest is not always eliminated, or the house is attacked from several points, so the proposed solution is to exterminate ants by spraying.
The spraying operates at a very high pressure that allows the materials to penetrate any point chosen to be sprayed and thus helps us to intensively exterminate the walls of the apartment and kill the ants permanently.
Granules
Ant extermination using granules will usually be done in gardens, and everywhere with vegetation and sand.
A favorite nesting area for ants is in a garden, yard or even a balcony that has several flower pots.
The ants go on a quest for food and one crumb of cookie is enough and the ants are already here!
During the search for food, the ants find themselves a pleasant corner where they can set up their nest, usually preferring to do so in a sandy and shady area.
So, if you have a small garden, a private yard or just a balcony with a few flower pots, chances are you will find the source of the problem there.
In such cases, gel pesticide or spraying will not help, the way to solve the source of the problem is by scattering bait grains in the nesting area and thus eliminating the source of the problem once and for all.
The fire ant is another type of ant.
They are smaller ants, with a reddish-brown color. Unlike regular ants, fire ants tend to sting, and their bites appear on the majority like a burn.
Usually, these bites are harmless and will go away within a few days, but in some cases medical attention should be sought.
All natural methods mentioned above (cinnamon, vinegar, etc.) will not work in cases of fire ant – it just does not affect them.
The fire ant can be exterminated using an unnatural but effective solution, with a very low percentage of poison.
To exterminate a fire ant there is a poisoned granular bait – these are poisoned berries, and they too are sold to the general public without the need for an exterminator license.
99.5% of these grains contain an attractant that attracts the ants and makes them think it is food.
In this case, too, they will bring the food to the queen, and then you will see no more ants.
If you have small children, babies or pets, it is important to buy a granulator or gel syringe that is indicated on their label that they are not harmful to babies and animals.
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