How do ants find their way into my home?

Ants have been around for over 100 million years. Finding their way into your home is an easy task compared to maintaining the crown for being one of nature's most ecologically successful animals. Ants are social insects and their survival is entirely dependent on the colony. Each member of the colony must carry out basic tasks each day to secure their survival. Each ant has­ a specific role. An ant's role can change as it ages. Senior ants tend to forage while younger ants stay within the colony to tend to the larvae and queen.

Cracks between bricks, or tiny holes around doors and windows, are some of the perfect entry points for ants to enter your home. They can maneuver through the tiniest of spaces. This includes electrical and plumbing lines that enter your home's structure from the outside. An ant lays down a broken trail of scent when they forage for food, resembling a 'dotted line' of chemicals that they secrete. When they find food, (a drop of juice, a few crumbs, or fallen food in those hard to clean places) the foraging ant fills up its ‘social stomach’ with as much food as it can. Once it is full, if there is any food remaining, the ant scurries back to its nest leaving a continuous line of scent along the way. The ant will begin sharing food with other members of its colony through its social stomach and other ants will begin to follow the traced scent back to the food source. Every time an ant visits the food source, it adds to the effectiveness of the scent trail.

Sometimes, ants find their way into your bathroom, your cabinets, and around your kitchen sink drain. Instead of spraying your house with products or sprays that only work temporarily, American Pest uses an effective, slow-acting ant gel bait that ants prefer over any substance around your home. The ant gel bait has a tiny amount of insecticide that is only harmful to ants. This substance is also safe to use around pets and kids. In addition, this ant gel bait takes advantage of the natural way ants feed and interact with each other. Once ants fill their social stomachs with the gel, they will go back to their colony and feed other members! The slow-acting effect of the ant gel bait allows enough time for ants to come into contact with the insecticide not only through feeding but by grooming and coming into contact with other contaminated nest mates.

Some of the ants commonly found in homes in DC, MD, and VA are odorous house ants, carpenter ants, and little black ants. The ant gel bait American Pest uses is effective at treating all types of ants around your home. They are easy to use, have virtually no clean up, and will help to eradicate the entire colony from your home. By removing the colony from your home, your ant problems will be no more! If you have any questions about ants in your home, contact us today!