People who live in private houses, or who like to spend long periods of time in the countryside, often encounter small ants appearing in the kitchen. There are homes for these insects in almost every area, but they cause the most problems by settling close to houses or in the houses themselves.
Their favorite place in the house is the kitchen, as for them it is an inexhaustible source of food. It is very difficult to get rid of such a neighborhood, but this can be done using proven methods.
Reasons for the appearance of ants in the kitchen
People in all countries with climates suitable for ants are faced with this problem.
There are about 12 thousand species on the planet, but only a few species can settle in a house, mainly for the following reasons:
- Constant presence of dirty dishes;
- Insufficiently clean floors and cabinets;
- Long-term storage of garbage in the house;
- Storing food in places easily accessible to insects;
- Availability of food in animal bowls;
Thus, the main reason for the appearance of ants is prolonged clutter in the kitchen. If scout ants find food in one place several times in a row, they report this to their relatives, as a result of which the kitchen becomes a feeding trough for an entire anthill.
They do not cause any particular harm, but they do cause a lot of inconvenience. They also spread bacteria as they often travel through sewage.
Where do they come from and where do they settle?
Ants that live in houses are tiny creatures. They can crawl into the smallest crack in the wall, behind the baseboard, through ventilation ducts, and into window cracks. Ants appear in the kitchen in several ways.
- If a colony of ants lives somewhere in the ceiling or wall of a house, then some of the insects may migrate to a new place of residence in the kitchen.
- Ants can come from neighbors when they are doing repairs or poisoning insects.
- During the summer of fertilized females, one of them may fly through a window or through a door.
- Wood ants settle in human habitation extremely rarely, but this possibility cannot be ruled out.
The favorite places that ants choose as shelters for their nests are:
- numerous kitchen cabinets and cupboards where supplies are stored, ants are especially attracted to sugar, flour, tea;
- spaces behind the baseboards where dirt, grease, and crumbs accumulate;
- areas behind kitchen furniture, stove, refrigerator. There are excellent conditions for the settlement and reproduction of ants: warm, damp and there is food.
Basic rules for getting rid of ants
There are many ways to fight ants in the kitchen, using special preparations or folk remedies. However, these remedies will be ineffective if certain rules are not followed:
- During the procedure and after it, it is necessary to keep the kitchen perfectly clean, otherwise the small ants will return in a couple of days. Before carrying out the procedure, you should do a thorough general cleaning;
- After the procedure, you must always keep the trash can clean and tightly closed;
- All containers with food should be placed out of reach; it is not recommended to leave food on the table or other surfaces;
- Dishes must be washed immediately after eating;
- It is necessary to do wet cleaning daily and vacuum after each meal;
All this will allow you to get rid of ants for a long time, in addition, these rules can be used as an independent and long-term method of getting rid of ants. If the ants have nothing to profit from within 10 days, they will disappear on their own.
Basic ways to get rid of ants
Ants are able to penetrate almost any room, and if they find food there, they form a chain, and almost all the time they transport food to the anthill, and they will not leave until the food runs out. Therefore, the owner of the house urgently needs to take action when they appear. How to get rid of ants in the kitchen? There are several ways to get rid of it:
- Use of drugs and substances that repel or kill insects;
- Installation of obstacles;
- Setting traps.
The most effective way is to use special medications, but this method may not help everyone, since some may suffer from intolerance to these substances. In such situations, you can use the second and third methods to get rid of the problem.
Red ants
This species has spread widely throughout the world and has adapted to live in almost any climatic conditions, although they come from hot Ethiopia.
Not exceeding 4-5 mm in length, these small insects can easily penetrate any narrow cracks, and once in a human home, they prefer to live closer to the bathroom and kitchen. The main thing is that it is moist and satisfying.
Red ants can eat not only human food, but also chew leather goods, textiles, and electrical insulating materials. They will not disdain the corpses of already dead insects. And for food, special preference is given to meat, sweets, crumbs, fat and all the leftover food that is found in the trash can.
Red ants have one interesting difference: they like the smell of human sweat. And given their ability (like any other ants) to carry infections, crawling onto a possible wound on the human body can cause the introduction of pathogenic bacteria.
Reproduction in red ants occurs as quickly as in all their relatives. Females are constantly busy only laying new eggs, rapidly increasing the size of the family, therefore, when fighting ants, it is important to manage to destroy the source of spread itself - the nest with the queens.
The ways in which red ants enter an apartment are the same as those of other ants:
- from neighbors;
- through the garbage chute;
- from basements and outbuildings;
- with things, on clothes and on pets’ fur.
As you can see, even the cleanest owners are not immune from these unexpected guests.
Getting rid of ants using special preparations
Today there are many products that effectively fight ants at home. The most effective are the following drugs:
Get capsules
These capsules do not harm humans, pets and plants, but are quite effective. To get rid of ants, the capsules need to be moved with the yolk of a boiled egg and scattered along the insect paths. Ants that eat the bait die, and at the same time infect other individuals, thus the entire colony dies out.
DEET drug
This drug is used to get rid of many types of insects. DEET is a paste that has a sweetish odor; it should be applied to places where insects accumulate. The smell of the paste repels insects, and they disappear quickly enough, but you should use it a little longer so that they do not come back.
Boric acid
This product is very effective, it can kill the entire colony, but it can also harm the health of the owners of the house and their pets. Therefore, it should not be used by people with poor health, or in homes with children and pets. It is recommended to mix boric acid with sugar or jam; this mixture should be left on ant trails. You should not keep it for a long time, as it acts quickly.
Antiant granules
This remedy acts very quickly, the insects disappear after a couple of days. The granules should be placed around the kitchen, out of the reach of children and animals. After a couple of days, the pests will disappear and the remaining granules can be removed. It is forbidden to get them wet as this reduces their effectiveness.
Crayons
Typically, fenvalerate is added to crayons, which helps to quickly get rid of ants, cockroaches and fleas. With these crayons you need to draw a line along the ant trail and in places where they accumulate. You need to use crayons only with gloves, you need to draw lines until the insects disappear.
When using special preparations, you must act strictly according to the instructions and use protective equipment.
Folk remedies
People who do not have time to go to a hardware store can use folk remedies, which are almost as effective as special medications.
The following folk remedies are considered the most effective:
- Vinegar water. The smell of vinegar repels insects, so by treating places where insects accumulate with a mixture of vinegar and water, you can get rid of unwanted guests in a couple of days. To prepare the mixture, you need to mix vinegar and water in proportions of 1 to 2, and pour it into a spray bottle. You need to work with gloves, and you also need to spray the mixture at a safe distance;
- You can also deal with insects using regular baking soda. To do this, you need to find the anthill from which the ants come, and fill it with soda, then pour vinegar on top;
- You can kill ants using cornmeal. The ants' body is not able to process cornmeal, as a result of which the insect dies;
- You can repel ants using orange peel; you need to cover the entrances of insects with it. Or you can sprinkle lemon juice along the trails;
- If insects attack pets' bowls, their edges can be treated with Vaseline.;
- Insects can also be repelled by strong odors; for this, ant paths should be sprayed with black pepper oil, peppermint oil, or you can simply scatter bay leaves, tomatoes, cloves or tobacco.
Danger to humans
It would seem that domestic ants can hardly be called parasites, but they still pose a certain danger to humans.
Consider the ability of ants to carry diseases - from worms to dysentery and other intestinal diseases. Rummaging through garbage, crawling through sewer pipes, the number of bacteria that they can “gift” to a person, bringing them on their paws, is difficult to predict.
Ants can also accidentally enter the bedroom - after all, there are practically no restrictions on their movement. There are times when ants crawl into the ear of a sleeping person, and being small in size, they can penetrate deep enough to cause problems.
Ant bites can trigger an allergy attack in those who are sensitive to insect bites. Exacerbations and attacks of bronchial asthma in those suffering from this disease cannot be excluded.
Food spoilage is a very noticeable harm caused to humans by ants. It is unlikely that anyone will eat food on which crawling insects have been observed. And the point is not so much that the food will be somewhat chewed after such a visit, but rather the danger of using such products due to the infection that the ants can bring on themselves. In addition, if an insect accidentally gets into the refrigerator, it will not die due to its natural resistance to high and low temperatures, but will continue to treat itself there with pleasure.
The rapid proliferation of an ant family can lead to the need to get rid of it in radical ways - with the help of poisonous insecticides, which is also unsafe for humans.
Ants often clean their nest, taking out waste from their food, dead brethren, excrement and other debris, which accumulates in a kind of ant dumps. Such deposits promote the development of flea larvae and mold fungi.
Creating obstacles
Sometimes you can get rid of ants by creating obstacles in their path; this can be done in the following ways:
- Seal the passage. This method can be used together with folk remedies. Insects typically enter a home through cracks in the floor and gaps in vents and pipes. To repel ants, these passages should be completely closed; this can be done using glue, plaster and silicone;
- You can also create an obstacle for them by treating their path with Vaseline, mint oil or soap solution.
Such methods are not suitable for independent use; it must be combined with something else. If you combine folk remedies with this method, the effect can be achieved faster.
