If you don't like pests setting up shop in your home, you might be interested in hiring a professional exterminator to help you with your problems. However, unless you understand the tools that they are working with, you might find yourself wondering what else you can do to curb issues. For example, if you don't mention that mosquito problem, your exterminator might not know to treat that water feature with a pesticide that targets larvae. My site explains different ways you can prepare for your professional pest control treatment, so that you aren't left with issues later down the road.
If you see tiny ants in your kitchen, you may wonder how and why they got into your home. There are two types of ants that frequent kitchens and other areas with food: sugar ants and grease ants. If you know their sizes, colors and eating habits, you can take steps to get rid of them. Here's how you identify and eradicate the ants in your kitchen.
Identify the Ants
Sugar ants range in color from orange to brown and have large, black heads. They also vary in sizes of 5 to 15 millimeters in length. Sugar ants are attracted to anything that contains sugar, including honey.
Grease ants are 1 to 1.5 millimeters long, which makes them the smallest ants to frequent human dwellings. Grease ants also appear yellow, brown to red in color, depending on the region they live in. Grease ants love to eat greasy food, such as chicken fat and bacon bits.
Now that you know more about sugar ants and grease ants, it's time to treat your pest problem.
Get Rid of the Ants
You need to use different ant control methods in your kitchen to get rid of each type of ant. Here's what you do:
Sugar Ant Treatment
If you identified sugar ants in your kitchen, buy a small container of honey, boric acid, a flashlight, and a container of caulking material. Place the container of honey in one corner of the kitchen to attract the ants.
Once the ants find the container, they'll travel from it to their nesting site until they completely consume the honey. The best time to see the ant trail is in the evening or at night. Although they can be active during the day, sugar ants usually come out at night or in the evening to feed.
Because of their small size, you need to shine a flashlight on the wall above the container of honey to see the ant trail. Follow the line of ants until it ends, which is generally a hole or crack in the wall, ceiling or window sill.
Seal the opening or line the window sill with caulk to keep the ants from re-entering the kitchen. Now, look for other openings in the kitchen and place caulking over them as well.
Return to the container of honey. Sprinkle boric acid into the bowl of honey. Boric acid is a type of poison that kills roaches and ant once they ingest it. If the ants return to the container from another area of the home, they'll take the boric-laced honey back to the nest for other ants to eat.
Grease Ant Treatment
For grease ants, you'll need to check specific places in your kitchen to find them, such as beneath your kitchen sink, behind the faucet or inside the oven. Grease ants will enter appliances that have grease splashes or stains. If you pour grease down your sink drain, it can also attract grease ants.
Now, follow these tips:
To keep grease ants out of your kitchen, never store old cooking oil on your counters, on top of the stove or in the oven. Place the containers inside the refrigerator instead.
If you have questions about how to get rid of ants in your kitchen or home, contact go to sites of local pest control companies to see how they can help.
Share31 July 2015
