Why Bother with Ant Control?
- Ants can be a real nuisance. Not only can they trailing ants be unsightly but they can cause damage and spoil products. Have you had them invade your pantry lately and spoil food? When their numbers increase they can get into appliance, baby bottles and make life a real misery.
- Ants can also carry diseases like dysentery, smallpox and bacteria such as Salmonella. So you want to make sure that they hang around your key living areas where contamination may be possible.
Learn more about ant biology here...
- Even the cleanest home or office can be suddenly invaded by these little armies. A change in environmental conditions is all it takes for them to seek out new food sources or totally 'move camp'.
- Depending on the species, ants can commonly nest inside wall cavities, electrical equipment and roof voids. Others species nest in and around gardens and under paved areas causing soil subsidence.
Ant Control Tips
There are things that you can do to reduce ant problems around your home and workplace. Professional pest controllers use these ant control methods and strategies as part of good ant control programs:
- You need to be able to reduce the food source for ants. Clean up all food waste and spillages immediately. Keep food in tight sealed containers. Sealing up rubbish in bags also helps. Avoid leaving pet food around for long periods of time.
- Keep general vegetation around the premises under control. This means that vegetation needs to be kept away from the outside walls of the structure. Tree and bushes should not be touching the building, gutter or eaves and overhanging branches should be trimmed back.
Ant Control Methods and Strategies
The basic strategies for success ant control include:
- Inspection: It is vital to identify the correct genus or species of ant causing the problem. There are thousands of species and a number cause major problems in our homes and workplaces. Identifying the correct ant species is vital since they all have different food and nesting preferences. Locating nests and eradicating their 'home" is the most successful way of dealing with an ant infestation - but often the nests hard if not impossible to locate. A thorough inspection will provide important clues to a success treatment.
- Chemical Treatments: Chemical treatments for ants can range form liquid and dry powder formulation to granules. Most active ingredients in these products are based on synthetic pyrethroids which a good safety profile for you and your pets. The advantage of chemical treatments is that they can provide some ongoing protection (like a barrier) against future ant infestation - but this all depends on the type of ant control chemical being used and where it is placed.
- Ant Baiting: Ants baits are a very good tool being used by professional pest controllers. After correct identification of the ants, the correct bait can be selected and placed strategically to encourage the ants to feed. The advantage of using ant baits is that the ants transfer the bait back to the colony and if the baiting job is done well, the entire colony can be eradicated indirectly. The disadvantage of using baits is that the baits may need to be replenished over time - and the ants will not die off immediately, so patience is needed.
Call in a Professional...
While there are some things you can do to minimise ant infestation - if the problem is bad you most likely will need the help of a professional to fix the problem.
Why call in a professional pest controller for your ant control?
- They have the experience of knowing where to look and an in-depth knowledge of additional factors you may not be aware of.
- Professional pest controllers have specialised equipment to gain access to parts of the building structure.
- Professional pest controllers have a wide variety of products and systems that can provide on-going protection and eradication of ants.
- A true professional pest controller will provide a service warranty in most cases to ensure that if something was missed - or another external factor causes the ants to re-infest your premises, they will come back to fix the problem.