Nobody likes an insect in their home. But if you had to choose an insect to find on your property, chances are you’d probably choose an ant. We don’t have red ants here, and while we do have odorous house ants, they are not that common. That means the vast majority of ants in the area are essentially harmless.
But the problem is that it’s never just one ant, and that’s where ants can become a significant challenge.
Why Ant Prevention and Control is So Important
Ants send their workers out to look for food and water. Even if you maintain the cleanest home ever seen, it is impossible to prevent all crumbs and spills. Once a worker ant has found something they want – for example, a bowl of dog food or some spilled cereal underneath the cabinetry – it leaves a scent trail on its way back to the colony that tells other ants where to go.
As soon as it sends its message back, the colony sends potentially thousands of workers on the trail back to your home. Once on your property, not only will workers swarm the food they found, but they’ll also continually send additional scouts out to find other areas that they may have missed. That is why when you have an invasion of ants, say, in your kitchen, you’ll start finding potentially dozens of additional, individual ants in your bathroom, bedrooms, and more.
Eliminating ants by spraying them with insecticide is also ineffective. It is rarely enough to eliminate the pheromones, nor is it going to eliminate much of the colony (many colonies have tens of thousands of ants, and continue to breed more). It also can’t prevent ants from finding other areas of your home to explore. Instead, what you need is ongoing pest control that sets up a barrier that ants cannot cross.
Why Ongoing Pest Control is the Best Strategy
There are two approaches we can take to get rid of ants. One is to eliminate the colony. The other is to block ants from being able to come onto your property in the first place.
While we at ADAPT Pest in the Roseville and Rocklin area can eliminate a colony, the truth is that that is rarely enough to make a difference. More ants will eventually come onto your property and ants can also travel from other homes nearby. But bi-monthly pest control can help. Using natural, long lasting pesticides, we spray all around the property a solution that ants cannot safely cross. Most of the time they will not even cross the barrier, but if they do try to cross, they’ll die before they have a chance to find food.
That means ants cannot find any food on your property in the first place or send a message back to their colony, and the result is a home that is completely ant free.
If you’d like to learn more about our Roseville and Rocklin pest control services, please contact ADAPT Pest today.
